Featured Artist: Brian Dettmer
...ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories.
From the artist:
In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories. My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.
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Brian Dettmer is a Chicago native who currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He is known for his detailed sculptures using the medium of books and other analog forms. He has exhibited his work throughout North America and Europe, including The Museum of Arts and Design (NY), The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute (DC), the Museum of Contemporary Art (GA) and The Chicago Cultural Center (IL). His work has been featured on the CBS Evening News, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Wired, NPR among many others. Dettmer’s solo show, which debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, is traveling around the U.S. throughout 2013. For more information, visit his website here.