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Quotation of Books
The Other Book, Cleveland State University Art Gallery
Cleveland, Ohio, March 5–April 3, 1999 In a number of
recent works I have arranged quantities of ordinary objects in a
mosaic-like fashion in order to form words, phrases, or quotations.
For example, one project involved the use of 9000 business cards
to spell out a quotation from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
regarding the ultimate futility of earthly endeavors as exemplified
by the standard business card. In these works it is my intention
to create a meaningful relationship between the physical objects
and the word, phrase, or sentence formed by them.
For Quotation of Books I borrowed a quotation about reading
from C.S. Lewis that stated "We read to know we are not alone."
The idea followed the realization that, by shelving books of various
shapes and sizes with the spine pointing outward to create the figure
and the pages pointing outward to form the ground, letters, words
and, ultimately, sentences could be constructed. The project, which
was installed in the stacks of the Ned R. McWherter Library at The
University of Memphis, consisted of approximately 4000 volumes borrowed
from the library's inventory of outdated materials.
With that work my intention was to surprise and delight the reader
in each of us. Imagine walking through the stacks of a library and
coming upon this unexpected message, as if the books themselves
were speaking. Would this not create the potential for an incorporeal
camaraderie similar to the relationship between writer and reader
suggested by Lewis?
Since the completion of that project I have considered variants
on Quotation of Books. My collection of quotes suggests the possibility
of matching volumes of like subject matter–art, gardening,
history, etc.–with a quotation germane to the field or topic
covered in the books. For example, a personal favorite from Ralph
Waldo Emerson–"Good men must not obey the law too well"–could
be built of law books.
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