ARTISTS
EXHIBITION
Bringing together a selection of work by 17 international artists, Library Science contemplates our personal, intellectual and physical relationship to the library as this venerable institution—and the information it contains—is being radically transformed by the digital era. Through drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, painting and web-based projects, the artists in Library Science explore the library through its unique forms, attributes and systems: from public stacks to private collections, from unique architectural spaces to the people who populate them, from traditional card catalogues to that ever-growing “cyber-library,” the World Wide Web. [READ MORE...]
ERICA BAUM
Untitled (Power), 1996
Gelatin silver print (Card Catalogue)
20 x 24 inches
Edition 1/6 + 2 AP
Courtesy of the artist and Bureau, New York
Untitled (Secretaries), 1996
20 x 24 inches
Gelatin silver print (Card Catalogue)
Edition 1/6 + 2 AP
Courtesy of the artist and Bureau, New York
Untitled (Suburban Homes), 1997
Gelatin silver print
20 x 24 inches (Card Catalogue)
Edition 6/6 + 2 AP
Courtesy of the artist and Bureau, New York
Framed strategically and captured cinematically, Erica Baum’s work isolates the subject headings of library catalogue cards in a manner that returns unexpected concrete poetry, encouraging the viewer to ponder the power dynamics between words.
DAVID BUNN
No Voyager Record, 2008/2011
Slide projection
81 35mm slides, Kodak Carousel projector
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist and Angles Gallery, Los Angeles
In No Voyager Record, David Bunn presents images of catalogue cards marked with annotations of lost or missing books at the Brooklyn Museum of Art library, where he had been invited to do a project with its discards. The title refers to the Voyager Project, the library’s digitization of its card catalogue. In an ironic twist, the digital version crashed and the backup was erased. The librarians had to salvage the old card catalogue, which had already been boxed for its disposal.
This Cute Piece of Miniature Art (Rosalea), 2004 (detail)
Unique Iris print, 24 Los Angeles Central Library catalogue cards and 13 prints by Rosalea
22 ½ x 43 ¾ inches framed
Courtesy of the artist and Angles Gallery, Los Angeles
In the series Subliminal Messages, David Bunn searched the discarded card catalogue of the Los Angeles Central Library for cards that revealed human interaction with the catalogue. Scanning evidence of use – fingerprints, stains, tears and graffiti – he then transformed the evidence into large-scale prints. This Cute Piece of Miniature Art (Rosalea) features the work of another artist, which Bunn discovered under the subject heading "Art":
"This ‘cute’ piece of miniature art was hidden by Rosalea to suit mass tastes and to remind the public to have a heart and support living artists. This art may not be sold because the artist received nothing for creating and distributing it, but it may be collected or traded for others (one million) that are hidden in unusual places throughout the country. Edition of 2,300. Copyright 1979 by Rosalea c/o Rosalea’s Hotel, Harper, Kansas 67058."
"This ‘cute’ piece of miniature art was hidden by Rosalea to suit mass tastes and to remind the public to have a heart and support living artists. This art may not be sold because the artist received nothing for creating and distributing it, but it may be collected or traded for others (one million) that are hidden in unusual places throughout the country. Edition of 2,300. Copyright 1979 by Rosalea c/o Rosalea’s Hotel, Harper, Kansas 67058."
Youth U.S., 2004 (detail)
Unique Iris print, Los Angeles Central Library catalogue file and plexiglass
Print 29 x 40 inches framed; Library card 5 x 7 x .25 inches framed
Courtesy of the artist and Angles Gallery, Los Angeles
In Youth U.S., Bunn magnifies the hand-written word "Racist" which was written on the catalogue card entry for the book “Mexican-American Youth: Forgotten Youth at the Crossroads.”
CHRIS COFFIN
Hurricanes 551.55 D, 2003
Graphite on library card
3 x 5 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Water, A Primer 551.48 L, 2003
Graphite on library card
3 x 5 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Weather or Not 551.5 V, 2003
Graphite on library card
3 x 5 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Weather, Watching for the Wind 551.5 E, 2003
Graphite on library card
3 x 5 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Weather, Wind Patterns 551.6 B, 2003
Graphite on library card
3 x 5 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Waves and Beaches; The Dynamics of the Ocean Surface 551.4 B, 2003
Graphite on library card
3 x 5 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Using data from wave mapping programs and NASA satellite photographs of severe weather conditions, Chris Coffin draws weather map iconography directly onto content-specific library cards from a discarded catalogue.
BLANE DE ST. CROIX
Library Fire: Landscapes, 2011 (installation view)
Library Fire: Landscapes, 2011 (detail)
Rolling library ladder, 24 drawings on wood panels, wood cabinets, Masonite and gold sizing
Panels 14 x 11 inches each
Overall dimensions 10 feet high x 3 feet wide x 6 inches deep
Courtesy of the artist
Photograph by Mia O.
Library Fire: Landscapes, 2011 (detail)Rolling library ladder, 24 drawings on wood panels, wood cabinets, Masonite and gold sizing
Panels 14 x 11 inches each
Overall dimensions 10 feet high x 3 feet wide x 6 inches deep
Courtesy of the artist
Photograph by Mia O.
Library Fire: Landscapes, 2011 (detail)
Rolling library ladder, 24 drawings on wood panels, wood cabinets, Masonite and gold sizing
Panels 14 x 11 inches each
Overall dimensions 10 feet high x 3 feet wide x 6 inches deep
Courtesy of the artist
In Library Fire: Landscapes, a modernist library of minimalist forms houses 24 drawings of charred landscapes. Of indeterminate time or place, each landscape represents wild fires that have crossed our southern and northern borders. Evoking ancient book forms to capture contemporary landscapes, De St. Croix parallels the extinction of both nature and knowledge.
MADELINE DJEREJIAN
Untitled (Bibliophile) from the series Reading, 1996-98
C-print
20 x 16 inches
Edition 2/5
Courtesy of the artist
Photographed at the Grolier Club in New York, the nation’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and graphic arts enthusiasts, Djerejian’s portrait contemplates the intellectual and physical relationship between the reader and the book.
MELISSA DUBBIN & AARON S. DAVIDSON
Reading Room for Kids, 2006/2011 (installation view)
All 39 books from the CIA’s 2006 Intelligence Book List for K-5th and 6-12th graders, wood and paper butterflies, metal pins, glue, wallpaper, furniture, carpet
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artists
Produced while in residence with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Photograph by Mia O.
Reading Room for Kids, 2006/2011 (detail)
All 39 books from the CIA’s 2006 Intelligence Book List for K-5th and 6-12th graders, wood and paper butterflies, metal pins, glue, wallpaper, furniture, carpet
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artists
Produced while in residence with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Photograph by Mia O.
Reading Room for Kids, 2006/2011 (detail)
All 39 books from the CIA’s 2006 Intelligence Book List for K-5th and 6-12th graders, wood and paper butterflies, metal pins, glue, wallpaper, furniture, carpet
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artists
Produced while in residence with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Photograph by Mia O.
In Reading Room for Kids, Dubbin and Davidson have transformed data into form, creating a reading room after the CIA’s recommended reading list for grades K-5 and 6-12. The wallpaper and butterflies are based on illustrations from “My Adventures as a Spy,” a 1915 book by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts and a British spy. Prior to his service in South Africa, he spied around military forts disguised as a butterfly enthusiast, sketching the plans and armaments of each fort, their size, type, and location of its guns concealed within the butterfly’s wings and body. Veins on the ivy leaf show the location of a fort, as seen looking west (point of the leaf indicates north). The butterfly contains the outline of a fortress, and marks on the lines of the wings note the caliber and position of guns.
PHILIPPE GRONON
Catalog de manuscrits, Bibliothèque Vaticane, Rome, 1995
Photographs mounted on aluminum panel
Five pieces at 28 x 40 inches each
Installation 28 x 197 inches
Edition 2/3
Courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
Catalog de manuscrits, Bibliothèque Vaticane, Rome, 1995 (detail)
Photographs mounted on aluminum panel
Five pieces at 28 x 40 inches each
Installation 28 x 197 inches
Edition 2/3
Courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
Philippe Gronon explores the idea of obsolescence vis-à-vis libraries and their artifacts in pristine black-and-white photographs that capture the surface details of the card catalogue at the Vatican Library, one of the oldest libraries in the world.
JOSÉ HERNÁNDEZ
Before History, 2005
Archival inkjet print
15 x 46 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Critical Thinking Sux, 2005
Archival inkjet print
15 x 46 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Spanish Women Writers, 2005
Archival inkjet print
15 x 46 inches
Courtesy of the artist
In the series The Books on the Shelf, José Hernández presents composite photographs of the stacks at the George T. Potter Library at Ramapo College, New Jersey, in which text, images, forms and colors engage in conceptual relationships based on specific juxtapositions.
CANDIDA HÖFER
Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra IV, 2006
C-print
80.5 x 97.375 x 2.375 inches
Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery, New York
The photographs of Candida Höfer capture the interiors of public and institutional spaces such as museums, zoos, archives and libraries devoid of human presence. Documenting the details of interior design, the intention of the space and the order and logic of the contents within, her images capture a universe of human knowledge.
NINA KATCHADOURIAN
Kinds of Love from Bookpace, 2002
C-print
12.5 x 19 inches; 13.5 x 20 inches framed
AP
Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
12.5 x 19 inches; 13.5 x 20 inches framed
AP
Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
Relax from Composition, 1993
C-print
19 x 12.5 inches; 20 x 13.5 inches framed
Exhibition print
Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
19 x 12.5 inches; 20 x 13.5 inches framed
Exhibition print
Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
Primitive Art from Akron Stacks, 2001
C-print
12.5 x 19 inches; 13.5 x 20 inches framed
AP1
Collection of Ben Yalom
12.5 x 19 inches; 13.5 x 20 inches framed
AP1
Collection of Ben Yalom
Dyslexia from Reference, 1996
C-print
19 x 12.5 inches; 20 x 13.5 inches framed
AP1
Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
19 x 12.5 inches; 20 x 13.5 inches framed
AP1
Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
In her ongoing series Sorting Books, Nina Katchadourian photographs books in private libraries and specialized book collections in which the artist has arranged selected titles into combinations that read as portraits of the library or its holder.
REYNARD LOKI
First Lines/Last Lines, 2004-present (ongoing) (First Lines, detail)
Ink on paper
Diptych: two pieces at 9 x 3 feet each
Courtesy of the artist
First Lines/Last Lines, 2004-present (ongoing) (Last Lines, detail)
Ink on paper
Diptych: two pieces at 9 x 3 feet each
Courtesy of the artist
In the ongoing project First Lines/Last Lines, Reynard Loki presents a snapshot of his personal library through his own classification system: an alphabetical listing of the first lines and last lines of the books in his collection.
LOREN MADSEN
Untitled (titles): Self, 1998
Iris print
30 x 30 inches, 32 x 32 inches framed
Courtesy of McKee Gallery, New York
Untitled (titles): Fashion, 1998
Iris print
30 x 30 inches, 32 x 32 inches framed
Courtesy of McKee Gallery, New York
Untitled (titles): Sex, 1998
Iris print
30 x 30 inches, 32 x 32 inches framed
Courtesy of McKee Gallery, New York
Loren Madsen utilizes the Web as a reference library to determine the most popular words that appear in book titles, searching for such key words as “virtue,” “fashion,” “fat” and “sex”—a conceptual exercise that indicates our varying degrees of interest in certain topics.
JORGE MÉNDEZ BLAKE
Project for Pavilion / Open Library III, 2011 (installation view)
Plexiglas, metal base and mirror
Maquette: 29.5 x 24 x 14 inches; Base: 38 x 36 x 36 inches
Photograph by Mia O.
Project for Pavilion / Open Library III, 2011 (detail)
Plexiglas, metal base and mirror
Maquette: 29.5 x 24 x 14 inches; Base: 38 x 36 x 36 inches
Photograph by Mia O.
Using literature as a conceptual tool, Jorge Méndez Blake creates fictional spaces that are inhabited by non-existent collections of books. Project for Pavilion / Open Library III is informed by Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” (an infinite library) and “The Garden of Forking Paths” (a labyrinth, or multiple ways of reading a single text).
Study for a Marx Library, 2009/2011
Paint on wall
5 feet high x 4 feet wide
Courtesy of the artist and 1301PE, Los Angeles
Photograph by Mia O.
In site-specific wall paintings, the artist gathers a selection of texts that are rendered in the reductive minimalist form of color-coded compositions to evoke libraries. Each pantone-colored rectangle is based on an actual book cover, representing both the spine of a book and the space the book occupies on a shelf.
ALLEN RUPPERSBERG
The New Five Foot Shelf, 2001
Online website
Installation dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York
Allen Ruppersberg has converted the contents of his New York studio library (1986 to 2001) into an online web-based project. Commissioned by Dia Center for the Arts for their website, The New Five Foot Shelf offers its users access to texts written by the artist, images of the contents of his studio, sound recordings and a fascimile of the original introduction to Dr. Eliot's Harvard Classics Five-Foot Shelf that offered readers the "equivalent of a Harvard education."
MICKEY SMITH
Corroborating Information, 2010
Five archival pigment prints in vintage frames
4 framed photographs: 8 x 10 x 1 inches each
1 framed photograph: 11 x 14 x 1 inches
Ed. 1/3
Courtesy of the artist and INVISIBLE-EXPORTS
Corroborating Information, 2010 (detail)
Five archival pigment prints in vintage frames
4 framed photographs: 8 x 10 x 1 inches each
1 framed photograph: 11 x 14 x 1 inches
Ed. 1/3
Courtesy of the artist and INVISIBLE-EXPORTS
In Corroborating Information, Mickey Smith has assembled and re-photographed found studio portraits that present the library—both fake and real—as the backdrop for portraits, exploring the relationship between the obsolescence of printed materials and the role of books in conveying status and mobility.
In Memoriam, 2011 (installation view)
1,201 Federal Reporters
143 x 194.5 inches
With special thanks to Brenner, Saltzman & Wallman LLP and Wiggin & Dana LLP
Photograph by Mia O.
In Memoriam consists of Federal Reporters that have been discarded and replaced by digital versions. Visitors have to step across the books in order to view the works in the gallery, making them active participants in the desecration of physical tomes of legal knowledge.
XIAOZE XIE
Chinese Library No. 46, 2010
Oil on canvas
36 x 54 inches
Courtesy of Chambers Fine Art
Untitled #3, 2010
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches
Courtesy of Chambers Fine Art
Xiaoze Xie contemplates the relationship between history, media and time in photo-based paintings that reflect on the conditions of materials in libraries and historical events. Painted after photographs that he has taken in libraries, Chinese Library No. 46 depicts the edges of stacked manuscripts in full decay. Untitled #3 is painted after stills from the documentary Degenerate Art (1993), and presents a detail from a scene on book burning under the Nazi regime during the 1930s.
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