In 2000, Dettmer turned his creative talents to a stack of left over books. He glued them together, painted them a uniform black, and then he gouged out a jagged hole. The result of this experiment was as if a small bomb had detonated destroying the interior of the books. Dettmer described the work as "a meditation on the dichotomy of learning through reading versus learning through experience." Excavating the text, he said, refers to "a more tactile way of learning by actually having an experience with the material"

For his next series of experiments, Dettmer glued the page edges of books together to create a solid block with the idea of carving geometric patterns into them. A bit of serendipity changed his course. "I was playing around with a block I had made out of an old encyclopedia-. As I carved down through the cover and into the text, I came across an image of a landscape. I left it in place and carved around it. A few pages dawn, another figure emerged." He left that one in place as well and continued on cutting through the pages, selectively revealing images and text. Dettmer had found what would become his signature technique.

Dettmer's book sculptures make forgotten material relevant in a new way. By selectively cutting away at the text and leaving an assortment of words and images behind, Dettmer reflects the often haphazard and piecemeal way we acquire knowledge.

All images courtesy Brian Dettmer.

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