Candida Hofer.jpg: Candida Höfer’s Bibloteca De La Real Academie De La Lengua Madrid II, 2000. Image courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery, New York
Rebecca Gross, a blogger for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read Blog, published a post yesterday about Artspace’s Library Science exhibition, which is on view through Jan. 28, 2012.
“Through drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, painting, web-based projects and works sited at New Haven libraries, the artists in Library Science explore the library through its unique forms, attributes and systems: from public stacks to private collections, from unique architectural spaces to the people who populate them, from traditional card catalogues to that ever-growing ‘cyber-library,’ the World Wide Web,” according to Artspace’s website.
A feature story about Library Science in the November 2011 issue of The Arts Paper (a monthly publication of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven), reads, in part: “(Artspace Executive Director Helen) Kauder met curator Rachel Gugelberger and learned of her idea for an exhibition that would serve as a counterpoint to the Google Library Project, a controversial effort to digitize the world’s books. The project came under fire from librarians and bibliophiles because of the possibilities of weakened copyright protections and the fundamental change in the way information is stored and distributed. ‘This is a moment of transition. That’s what this show’s about,’ Gugelberger said. Gugelberger, a curator based in New York, grew up as the child of a librarian – her family used discarded cards from her mom’s card catalog for writing notes. When she began to see her interest in libraries intersect with the work artists were already doing, Gugelberger realized that there could be an interesting exhibit on the topic.”
In her introduction to the exhibit, which was published on Artspace’s website, Kauder wrote, in part: “New Haven is the ideal community to host the exhibition Library Science as it boasts an unusually large number of libraries for a city of its size, including an array of the notable, unconventional, and historic. … The realization of this exhibition and the commissioning project that sprang from it are tremendous causes for celebration, as they mark Artspace’s return to its commitment to offer artists new modes of production outside traditional arts settings.”
“In conjunction with the exhibition, the Library Science Film Festival — taking place at libraries throughout Connecticut and presented in partnership with the Connecticut Library Consortium — features documentaries, independent films, Hollywood classics and television episodes in which the library plays a significant role,” according to Artspace’s website.
In her interview with Gugelberger, Gross asked: “Have you seen your own relationship with the library change in the digital age?”
Gugelberger responded, in part: “I feel that the computer has kind of homogenized our whole life experience in some way.”
With regard to the Artspace exhibit exploring libraries’ roles in an increasingly digital world, Gugelberger told Gross: “I feel that the library is adapting, and that’s what happens with technology … in a way, the book and the classification tools used to archive it and make it accessible have always adapted to technology. I see the exhibition as having one foot in the physical past and one foot in the digital future.”