Friday 20 January 2012

More books which can't be read

This time by Germna artist Anselm Kiefer, who has constructed impossibly heavy and un-book-like books out of lead. such as these.

Tannhauser, 2000
Lead Book with Thorns




Volkszählung (Census), by Anselm Kiefer, 1991, mixed media with lead books.
Permanent installation at the Museum für Gegenwart (Museum for Contemporary Art), Hamburger Bahnhof, Invalidenstraße, Berlin.




Untitled (Constellation Book), 2004, mixed media on lead, dimensions variable
His works are not about illegible type or script, but about books which while looking externally a bit like a book, are absolutely not like one - they are made of lead, they are huge and heavy, they cannot be opened and held in the hand, and - crucially - they do not contain writing.

I am not sure what, if anything, they represent.  But to my mind, a book which is not a book is something about the vast amounts of infomrtaton we either cannot have, or cannot absorb even if we can have access to it.  And some books, some information, is deliberately made obscure, so that some people can hold onto knowledge (power) which is denied to the majority.

Or maybe they are just immense and formidable book structures made, improbably, out of lead.  Finit.



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