Place: Gdańsk City Gallery 2, Powroźnicza street 13/15
Exhibition: 18 June–2 July, 2017
Opening: 18 June, 7 PM
As the saying goes, everyone has a book inside them. Writing a book is something everyone is supposed to be able to do within their lifetime. By book we mean a novel – we don’t think the saying refers to cookbooks or Ikea manual instructions. Everyone has a book inside them. Does it mean that everyone is able to write one? What’s the point of writing if no one is going to read it? Where’s your readership, is it out there or do you create it through your writing? And the million dollar question: why do artists write novels? Do they expect us to read them like we read a novel by Stieg Larsson?
Everyone Has a Book Inside Them is a The Book Lovers project for Gdanska City Gallery. The central element will be the artist’s novels collection created with the support of M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp), on display for public perusal. Jake Chapman, Salvador Dalí, Liam Gillick, Goldin+Senneby, Rodney Graham, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Pablo Helguera, Isidore Isou, Joseph Kosuth, Yayoi Kusama, Jill Magid, Mai-Thu Perret, Francis Picabia, Richard Prince, Benjamin Seror, Alexandre Singh, Cally Spooner, Andy Warhol… to a total of more than 460 titles.
During the opening evening on 18 June some of the artists authors will be reading their novels aloud for the audience. Sebastian Cichocki and Lukasz Jastrubczak will perform their artist’s novel Miraż (2012), Oskar Dawicki will perform his artist’s novel W Polowie Puste (2013). Also, artist David Bernstein has been given carte blanche to DJ the collection and create a performance based on the reading of excerpts from the artist’s novels. Reading is usually an act carried out in silence and solitude (just think of the reader’s lowering of the eyelids to avert the other’s gaze). Here, the inner voice in the silent reader’s mind is transformed into an audible performance by being read aloud. The narrative is expanded beyond the space of the page and reading becomes a collective shared experience.
The Book Lovers (since 2011) is the name of the collaboration between curator Joanna Zielińska and artist David Maroto. It is focused on research into the artist’s novel employed as a medium in the visual arts. Its base is the creation of a collection of artist’s novels with a parallel online database, which is complemented by a series of exhibitions and public programs, pop-up bookstores, and publications – all of this in partnership with a number of art institutions: M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp; de Appel, Amsterdam; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Printed Matter, NYC; Sternberg Press; Fabra i Coats – Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, among others.
