Photo by Claudine Nuetzel
Is the Internet eternal? Is the online world a compendium of all that is out there? Given the ease with which your not-so-humble phone can satisfy your strangest queries, it seems that the power of connectivity and the virtual world is a hegemony of information. “Books,” an installation by Kaspar Müller at Green Gallery, however, would have us think otherwise.
Müller has arranged the gallery with modernist bookshelves, Eames-era tables and chairs and some lovely, elaborate lights. At first the space may appear as an ordinary reading lounge, but what gives this installation its poignancy and resonating interest is a matter of language and time.
These are books that were destined to be destroyed. No longer salable or perceived as wanted, they range from philosophy to history to pop culture. For the American visitor (and significant in this exhibition) is the fact that most are in French or German. This may pose a sort of barrier, but one that dissolves through the perception of the books as objects in themselves. Visitors are encouraged to pick them up, page through and admire the images, especially in art books and encyclopedias. Bypassing the direct route to the printed word on the page, the visitor is drawn into thinking about the media through which we absorb ideas from the world around us.
However, it is important to put the books back where they come from. Müller has organized the installation so that the themes or titles of works placed together may alternately convey irony, nostalgia or another collective idea. A chrome wire bookcase includes a Bible printed in Greek, opened on a shelf above a vintage issue of Playboy. Joining this collection are works by Arthur Schopenhauer, Thomas Mann and others, with titles and themes that allude to the distances between philosophy and our physical realities.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
This installation mirrors the pleasures of a library, but in a curatorial fashion unlike anything the virtual world could offer. There is variation in the size and scale of books, and surprises appear despite what you might think you’ve come to find.
Kaspar Müller’s “Books” exhibition runs through July 3 at The Green Gallery, 1500 N. Farwell Ave.
