A limited edition magazine each issue of which is effectively a "performance" by a chosen artist who determines every detail of the text and graphics. Published since 1990. A collector's item.

Exhibtion catalogue with 37 illustrations of a "classical library"-installation.

In the exhibition "Falsa Prospettiva: Reflections on Claustrophobia, Paranoia and Conspiracy Theory," Michael Clegg and Martin Guttmann showed that they've grasped the significance of the library for the imagination and made from it a visual architecture that resonates beyond the space a nd time of the gallery. A sequence of photographs of shelves full of books, in a double row, created the illusion of a real bookstore. One could take great satisfaction in the aesthetic beauty of all these spines, all these names in different characters and colors, all these topics that conjure up the power of the intelligence of our species. The sensation of truly being in a library only increased, gradually, as one walked between the two rows of "shelves." And when one turned to retrace this path "paved with books," it became dear that the floor of the gallery had been raised at an angle to create the illusion of a much deeper space. This accelerated perspective is a device typical of set design, but one also encountered in cities.

Michael Clegg and Martin Guttmann are working together as a artist duo since 1980, when they both were studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York. When Clegg and Guttmann carried out their Open Library project for the first time in 1991, the main point was to suspend the fundamental properties of the social institution of the library. Clegg & Guttmann have also referred to their interventions as ‘community portraits’. On the one hand this links back to their earlier staged portraits, but the term also weakens the sociological emphasis of their art.

Language: English