Man and Space, 2007

Books, polyurethan, spray paint, rubber cement, 46 x 30 x 22 cm.

In the collection of StatoilHydro

In this sculpture the book as a container of knowledge and information has been transformed into a useless object. A negative, formless space has penetrated the logical structure of language. The series of books from The Life Science Library has been saved from the garbage heap of history (my father wanted to throw them away). What interested me about them was their anachronism in relation to the present day, and that they spoke of my nostalgia for the optimistic world view of the 1950´s and 60´s.

I remember sitting on the living room floor in my adolescence, leafing through the books in awe and wonder at the beautiful images of incomprehensible technological phenomena. When I look at the books today - transformed, or even reduced, to a sculpture - they strike me as relics of modernism and the ambivalence of science. I also think about the limits of language and rationality as systems to describe the world, and the function of art as sabotage.

This useless object seems to want to transcend its own uselessness, and remind me that knowledge and truth - both in science and art - is in a constant flux, forever to be rediscovered.

- Bjørn Bjarre, 2007