Casemore Kirkeby is pleased to present Anouk Kruithof‘s Enclosed Content Chatting Away in the Colour Invisibility, an installation of approximately 3,500 found colored books. This is the work’s first installation in the United States, and its eleventh iteration worldwide.
Throughout the year of 2008, Kruithof collected these 3,500 books, most of which are from the early 20th century. Some were acquired from eastern Europe, but had been written in the DDR and consequently dismissed after the state had collapsed. In today’s Germany, these books are usually sold in “1 Euro Bookshops” or end up at the “Papierbank”, a recycling dump for paper, where they are destroyed or slowly decay. Kruithof revitalizes these books by using them as objects to build a new structure.
Color and size determine the rhythm of this haptic installation that is always presented in a different order. Seen from up-close, these books might evoke abstract landscapes. Yet, these piles of old books can also trigger the idea of pixels and thereby allude to the continuous progress of digitalization (e.g. e-books) in the 21st century. In doing so, Kruithof plays with notions of stability and precariousness.