Paging Borges

Is it a picture of what happens when students hit too much weed while at the library? Or have the books, after years of subservience, finally taken the upper hand?

No.

Actually, it's artist J. Ignacio Diaz de Rabago's newest site specific sculpture. It's at UC Berkeley's Doe Library, and it's pretty damn bad-assed.

Diaz de Rabago has created similar art before. He started with "Babel Library I," an exhibit of books suspended from transparent fishing lines at a gallery in Paris in 1997. His "Babel Library II" exhibit took place at the State Library in Stockholm in 1998, and the series grew to include "Babel Library VII, Tower of Books" in Sweden at the Central Library in Malmo (2001) and "Babel Library VIII, Pillars of Papers" at the University Library in Oslo (2002).

I guess that makes this Babel Library IX?

Diaz de Rabago and an interdisciplinary team of UC Berkeley students working with him on campus spent a day last week drilling holes in approximately 300 discarded and unsalvageable volumes that had been withdrawn from the library. They inserted a thin metal cable through each book, arranged them as directed by Diaz de Rabago, and used the stair's railings to help lower the books into place in the air.

The work is slated to remin in place for close to a year, so if you plan on being in the area any time soon, be sure to chek it out.

Comments

[Mill]

I like books and libraries so I think this is cool, but is it really that "bad-ass" to take a bog-standard shopping-mall window-dressing idea and milk it for 9 iterations?

[nnyhav]

Community Library is currently on display at 1285 6th Ave NYC.