"Read thousands of books, travel thousands of miles" Liu Yi (1017-1086)Xu Bing. Book From the Sky1987-91Mixed media installation / Hand-printed books and scrolls printed from blocks inscribed with ''false'' characters.Huang Yong Ping The History of Chinese Painting and a Concise History of Modern Painting Washed in a Washing Machine for Two Minutes1987-1993 Chinese teabox, paper pulp, glassIn the art world there are few genres as hot as Contemporary Chinese Art and in Chinese Contemporary Art there are few objects as important as the book.The quote above from Liu Yi begins Wu Hung's introduction to the catalog of the seminal exhibition...
Libraries Resist Google. Is the Tide Turning?
“Scanning the great libraries is a wonderful idea, but if only one corporation controls access to this digital collection, we’ll have handed too much control to a private entity,” Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance said.Amen.“There are two opposed pathways being mapped out...One is shaped by commercial concerns, the other by a commitment to openness, and which one will win is not clear.” Paul Duguid, an adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.Vote For Openness!Book scanning stations at the Internet Archive.Quotes and image above from Katie Hafner's piece...
What’s In David Copperfield’s Warehouse?
The FBI raided David Copperfield's warehouse in Las Vegas looking for evidence in connection with a rape investigation underway in Seattle.What's in that warehouse? Beside Copperfield's Lingerie collection how about one of the largest and most important collections of rare books and related material on conjuring and the allied arts! The warehouse is actually named the International Museum & Library of the Conjuring Arts.The Museum was featured in Mark Singer's great profile on Ricky Jay that appeared in the New Yorker Magazine in 1993. Jay, an avid book collector, had curated the collection in the 1980's and was present when...
Three Reasons Why We Don’t Read Poetry
John Lundberg has a piece over at Huffington Post today titled Why You Should Read Poetry...Yes, Poetry. He begins by talking about a reading Anna Akhmatova gave in Moscow after World War II. The place was packed and the audience went wild, "When she finally closed her books, she received such thunderous applause that Joseph Stalin asked who'd organized the ovation. The man knew power when he saw it. "The power of poets cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately these days in America poetry "is best known for the simple, sentimental verses found in Hallmark cards and the lyrics of pop music....
Drinking bookshelves
The Sloom & Slordig design firm came up with these in 2002.Each book gets a box the rest is up to you.Thanks to Design Milk for the lead