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They’re books—only changed. Carved, warped, fired like pottery, they are

books transformed into visual art, but still they’re books.

Book art is intimate, fascinating, and transgressive.

When we talk about books, we are usually talking about what’s inside,

but there is a lot more to a book than reading it.

Book art makes those other aspects its domain: the way books look; the way

that, with their bent spines and marginalia, they record the history of our own reading lives; the way that these mass-produced objects can seem to hold not just letters but

knowledge.

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Book Autopsies by Brian DettmerBrian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork

inside. Brian Dettmer, born in 1974, was raised

in Naperville, Illinois. Until 2006, Dettmer lived in and around Chicago, where he earned a BA in fine arts

from Columbia College Chicago in 1997. During school and following graduation, Dettmer worked as an artist

and in positions related to graphics and signage design. In 2006, Dettmer moved with his wife to Atlanta, where he works as a studio artist.

In college, Dettmer focused primarily on painting. When he began to work in a sign shop, his work began to explore the relationship between text,

images, language, and codes, including paintings based on braille, Morse Code, and American Sign

Language. He then began to make work by repeatedly pasting newspapers and book pages to

canvas and tearing off pieces, leaving behind layered fragments.

In 2000, Dettmer started to experiment by gluing and cutting into books, the medium for which he is now most known. Dettmer's current work involves the alteration of media to transform the physical

form and/or to selectively remove and reveal content to create new works of fine art.

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An early example of Dettmer's unique

altered books is his 2003 work, New

International Dictionary (pictured at

right), which is an original 1947

unabridged dictionary sealed and carved by

Dettmer to expose images within the

dictionary.

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A large body of Dettmer's

current work is created by

altering books, including older

dictionaries, encyclopaedias,

textbooks, science and engineering

books, art books, medical guides, history books, atlases,

comic books, wallpaper

sample books, and others. 

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Dettmer seals and cuts into the books, exposing select images and text to create intricate three-dimensional derivative works that reveal new or alternative interpretations of the books. Dettmer never inserts or moves any of the books' contents. As he cuts away unwanted material, Dettmer stabilizes the remaining paper with a varnish.

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Cassette tape skulls

Other notable

examples of media

transformed by

Dettmer include melted

music cassette

tapes formed into a life-

sized human skel

eton  and various animal skulls;

20Another cassette tape animal skull

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Dettmer's 2008 work, Mound 3, is an

example of a dictionary folded and sanded by Dettmer to resemble

carved wood.

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Tom Bendsten is a Canadian visual artist. His work consists mainly of installations,

films, sculpture, etc.Some famous works of his are his "Conversations" and his

"Arguments" which use books as both physical building material and subject

matter.

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Argument #6(b) is shown here. These

tend to be monumental in size, large breath-taking architectural works. In these works, the

textural (as opposed to textual) qualities

of the books themselves, and the way that light falls on them, help to

create much of the beauty.

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(interior detail) Books organized by colour

rather then history. 360 degree landscape

panorama.

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Functional library arranged by color over subject. Titles thrown into chaotic relationships.

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Conversation at Lockwood Library 2003

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ook shredded, rolled into cigarette papers. Used books I read while at graduate school.

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Book Sculptures by Robert TheThis talented artist was born in Carmel, California, 1961. Studied philosophy and

mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1979 - 1984.

Institute of Lettering and Design, Chicago 1986-88.

Began making book pieces in 1991..

Robert The: in the space between words and meaning

You think that books are just for reading? It turns out that many people think different.

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Robert The’s story is particularly interesting and began with a breakdown while in school double-

majoring in philosophy and math:I kinda blew a fuse in my senior year—something very strange happened—and I lost my ability to

read for a period of a month or two. This sharpened my interest regarding what was

actually going on with the symbols that convey meaning on a concrete level.

The’s works “seem to elongate that infinitesimal moment between focusing on the

word and reading it.” 

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CARA BARER: PHOTOGRAPHING

BOOKS ON THE EDGETexas artist Cara Barer’s epiphany came when she saw a rain-soaked Yellow Pages lying on the ground. She photographed its

intricately bent pages and soon moved on to dictionaries, software handbooks—anything with pages might become the basis for her

carefully posed, elegantly whimsical images.Barer’s photographs consist almost

exclusively of the edges of pages, fantastic arabesques of white or color against a studio portrait–like black background. Pages crinkle,

curl and twirl, spines do backbends, the pages of two different volumes touch like

delicate tentacles reaching out in a mating dance. In each work, it is the flexibility of paper itself, stiff, soft, and strong, that we

notice.

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Book Sculptures by Su Blackwell

This remarkable artist employs this delicate,

accessible medium and uses irreversible,

destructive processes to reflect on the

precariousness of the world we inhabit and the fragility

of our life, dreams and ambitions.

...the work of artist Su Blackwell, whose 2D and 3D

paper “book” sculptures create a surreal and magical

backdrop for the winter jewellery spreads.

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Book Face Sculptures by Nicholas Galanin

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Future of Books by Kyle Bean

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(***There is a fantastic video of how this pencil tree was made on this site,

if you are interested ,Go to the site & click on the same image as above & the video will come up....***

Trinity)http://www.kylebean.co.uk/portfolio

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Book Art by Georgia Russell

Scottish artist who uses a scalpel instead of a brush or

a pen, creating constructions that

transform found ephemera, such as books, music

scores, maps, newspapers, currency and photographs

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Cut and painted books in bell jars 

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Cut photographs in acrylic case

Cut 19th-century engraving in acrylic case 

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Cut book in circular acrylic case

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Trinity

7/28/2009