salvage project

If you get a chance to visit the Library of Reclaimed Books I would definitely recommend you do so. It is available online but it is a much more rewarding experience if you can handle the books and browse at your leisure. It is something of an enigma in that it is only occasionally a physical entity. It often appears at book fairs but is otherwise closed. I last met it at BABE in Bristol where it had arrived in very large suitcases.

The premise is that discarded library books or other books that have ended their useful life are taken by artists and rejuvenated to live a new life as art objects or revised texts. As the library grows so the variety of interpretations becomes more fascinating.

So, in the case of my chosen book, the wisdom of Herbert Read escapes an ignominious end and lives to tell the story of twentieth century art - albeit in a rather more obtuse manner.