The Never-Ending Corridor of Books
The Never-Ending Corridor of Books and the Never-Ending Wall of Books are two components of The Library project by Nicolas Grospierre.
Both are installations comprised of photographs placed in light boxes and shown in mirrors to create the illusion of endlessness.
The Library project is not the representation of a specific library, but rather an attempt at representing the very essence of the idea of a library. It is loosely inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ novel The Library of Babel, where the author describes the universe as an “infinite and cyclic” library. The project is thus an attempt at showing, through a photographic installation, the library as an infinite gathering of books, but that can be contained in a single book.
The Never-Ending Corridor of Books. Installation view
The Never-Ending Wall of Books. Installation view at the Palace of Old Books, Warsaw, 2006.
If one assumes that a library has three main functions, that is to gather books, to stock them and archive them, and to make them available to the public, it is possible to phrase the following statements. First, as a library is, by nature, a place where books are gathered, it is potentially infinite, because books, and thus knowledge, knows no boundaries and is constantly expanding. And second, a library may contain a book on libraries, or even the list of all books in that particular library, which means that a library is simultaneously the container and the content of the same subject matter
Fake book #1148228, laid flat