Der Traum der Bibliothek

The other universe

Libraries and books exert a great fascination. They are spaces of collective memory and repositories of knowledge. In these places of contemplation and concentration, looking into a book opens up new worlds. The exhibition "The Dream of the Library" illuminates this fascination from the perspective of conceptual art. The artists in the exhibition use objects, installations and films to playfully address the collection, its forms of presentation and classification criteria. Bookshelves and displays are scrutinised just as much as the reading situation. Since the early 1990s, for example, books have been Peter Wüthrich's exclusive material. High up under the ceiling, they seem to soar like a flock of birds - fleeting thoughts, books (and friends) whose contents we can only guess at. Like the many legendary pirate treasures, however, the books are not tangible, which constantly triggers the desire to be able to read them. Shaken by invisible forces, turned upside down and finally hurled out of their small world - the bookshelf - into unknown space: This is what happens to the books in Julius Brauckmann's video. Saadane Afif plunges us into a world of buccaneers and corsairs, the literature is placed on undulating shelves under dried, glittering paint, like a treasure chest that has just been lifted and covered in algae. Clegg & Guttmann can be considered the inventors of the public library - a principle that has spread like a grassroots revolution in cities and even in the countryside: Books are placed in a public place and anyone who takes one from the shelf adds another one themselves. The photo on the right documents a campaign in the small town of Pritzwalk in Brandenburg. Local residents were asked to collect their children's books from the GDR era. The result was a kind of cross-section through the childhoods of several generations. Reading the covers and spines of the books brings back memories of a bygone world, which is why the project stirred up numerous emotional discussions.

Artists:
Saadane Afif, Jacques André, Margit Bauer, Achim Bitter, Julius Brauckmann, Clegg & Guttmann, Fernanda Fragateiro, Lutz Fritsch, Michael Glawogger, Rodney Graham, Thomas Hartmann, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Abigail Reynolds, Michel Sauer, Beatrix Schwehm, Mika Taanila, Erdem Taşdelen, Peter Wüthrich, Erwin Wurm

Exhibition:
Museum of Contemporary Art Siegen, 31/3 - 1/9/2019