Where does a book end? Is it confined by its psychical form? Or does the book end within ourselves, extended from the pages that form it to our psyche, and those of others that have read it. Is a book a thing or much more, a concept?
Irena Frantal, a book art specialist, will try and find out with the help from visitors at artOmat this Monday and Tuesday, December 21th and 22nd. Frantal will explore those concepts using a round paper form on the floor of Bacva gallery in Mestrovic pavilion, Zrtava fasizma square (‘barrel gallery’, the inner rim of the pavilion called so due to its shape) that people will be able to cut, shred, scroll, write an walk on forming a continuing visual narrative of the ‘book’, and a 20 meter long sheet of blank paper hanged in the gallery that the artist and the audience will fill with words in different patterns.
‘I don’t want to give the audience any answers. I am just asking questions, hoping they will also ask questions themselves. For a long time I wanted to explore a physical space of a gallery and connect it with my ideas of what a book can be – that is what I am doing now. Can we think about what a book is, where it stops, and relationships between a viewer and a book – is that the space of a book? Since the idea is to ‘pull the text’ from the given space and moment, I haven’t prepared much except basic tools: pencils, stencils, knives, paper. We will have to see what will come out – which is very exciting. Poetry, hopefully’ Frantal expresses her ideas.
The two day performance will start at 3pm and end at 9pm each day. Everyone is invited to join the artist in the attempt to create and redefine the book as a concept and place it in the space of a gallery.
