2009 04 23 - 2009 05 23
Opening reception: 2009 04 23, 19:00
Artists and projects:
Mariana Castillo Deball
Jason Dodge
FormContent
Ryan Gander
Mark Geffriaud
Laura Kaminskaite
Irene Kopelman
The Infinite Library
One well known psychoanalyst once said: in order to make a book disappear you don't have to destroy it - simply take it out of its place in the library and insert it somewhere else, be it only several bookshelves away. Physically it will remain right at hand, but for anyone unaware of this, the potential sites and times of the books disappearance will be endless. Only a madman could start scanning the library book by book in order to find the missing oeuvre.
Yet there is another possibility, strangely corresponding to the one just mentioned: the possibility of accidentally finding a certain book which does not belong to the library. A book which coexists with the whole structure without in fact having a rightful place in it. How should one read such a book? How do you tell apart the necessary from the contingent or the text from the context in this instance? Do the underlined sentences form a secret message? Do these greasy fingerprints belong to the character who sneaked this mysterious book into the library? Maybe the whole narrative of the work was conceived only to distract the reader from something much more important? Are you in the book once you touch it?
In the case of the displaced book a subtle gap is demonstrated. This gap is between the real (in this case, the books) and the symbolical (the library). Once a book is erased from the symbolical order its reality is also destabilized. Yet how is it with the book which is in your hands but not in the register? There is no gap in this case - the book missing from the symbolical order still affects the latter. A tangible object intrudes into the sphere of ideas without itself becoming an idea. Apparently, the story begins in the middle as usual.
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