Exhibits
Main Library Exhibit Areas
First floor:
- Foundation Case — located in the west entrance foyer near School St.
- Lobby Case — in the main lobby across from the Circulation Desk.
- Emery Case — in the main lobby across from the new fiction books.
- Brookline 300th Display Case — in the Reference Room
Children's Room:
- at the entrance
- across from the Circulation Desk
- all around the room.
The Gallery in Hunneman Hall — located on the second floor
"NOT-BOOKS: An Exhibition of Installation Art in the Library"
Mar 3, 2008-May 15, 2008
Coolidge Corner
Beginning Monday, March 3, the Brookline-based sculptors' collaborative Studios Without Walls presents "NOT-BOOKS: An Exhibition of Installation Art". The eleven-week exhibit will feature original site-responsive art, sculpture, and video by ten local sculptors. The varied works will examine the changing role of libraries as centers for transmitting human understanding, preserving culture, and reflecting our social identities.
The sculptures and installations of "NOT-BOOKS" intermingle with the paths of library patrons, investigating the changing forms and uses of public libraries. The art also celebrates the public role of Brookline's libraries in modeling and teaching democratic values.
Elizabeth Michelman, "NOT-BOOKS" curator, explains: "The artists challenge our expectations that literary and visual expression remain separate by introducing a variety of unexpected materials and innovative forms in unexpected settings throughout the library. Playing off the library's own collections, the themes of the works run from didactic to transcendent, from commentary on local community matters to affirmation of global inter-connectedness."
Among the works developed for this show, Wendy Soneson's winged books above the stacks convey the soaring flight of books, while Muriel Angelil's suspended book/letters of "Waves of Learning" curtly instruct us to "R-E-A-D." Karen Klein's original haiku carved from wood, wire and bone fragments defend poetic minimalism against the sea of fact.
Some of the art works delineate areas within the open-plan architecture of the building, such as Myrna Balk's high-trapeze newspaper racks in "The International Swing". Joan Schwartz's "nä-lij/wiz-d?m" transforms an encyclopedia circa 1985 into a web of words that seeks new connections to enduring wisdom. Exploring ambivalence between domesticity and adventure, Elizabeth Michelman's video frames the narrative structure implicit in a staircase.
Other works fitted to their sites include Bette Ann Libby's garden spot for curling up to read a mosaic book, Barbara Vogelsang's oversize hand-made paper calendar and pen, a deconstructed steel and copper "book" by Jim Wright, and book-bursting collages of poetic fragments and urban detritus by Susan Alport.
The ten exhibiting artists include:
Susan Alport; Muriel Angelil; Myrna Balk; Karen Klein; Bette Ann Libby; Elizabeth Michelman; Joan Schwartz; Wendy Soneson; Barbara Vogelsang; and Jim Wright.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Brookline Commission for the Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.