Artists’ Books > Withdraw/Archive

I have collected many library hardcovers without contents when the Harvard Fine Arts Library deaccessed some of their books. These hardcovers are archival materials and very sturdy, yet they carry wears from many years of use. The materials themselves embody history. I loved the library stamp and book plate on them. The covers, their library stamp, and book plate signify that there was once important knowledge held inside. Knowledge worthy enough to be kept in the Harvard Library’s collections. However, all the contents were now ripped for recycling and the covers were to be thrown away. The precise reasons for each of these books being deaccessed are unknown to me. Sometimes, their historical importance changes over time and no longer needed to be kept in the library collections, or the library finds a duplicate copy within the Harvard Library systems and duplicate copies are deaccessed. Libraries also need to make room for new books.

The “Museum” hardcovers are particularly interesting to me. I decided to insert my old work inside these “Museum” hardcovers to make artists’ books, and I decided to use either test prints or extra prints from my past installations for the first two artists’ books in this series. These prints were supposed to be “withdrawn” from my studio too, but I still had them.

What I’m interested is how these art pieces will be “read” inside the library hardcovers that signal certain value systems. The institution’s name, Harvard, and the title on the cover such as “Museum| 10 | 1957” both inform the viewers a sense of establishment, history, place of knowledge, and authority in their fields. These names validate what they hold.

What makes one’s art more valid and valuable than others? Is that the structure that holds them? Inside are my remaking of old and often “to-be-thrown away” pieces. Is this an act of one’s history making/remaking? What meanings and values does the outside structure give to what’s inside?