cover story: It's a Book

I wanted to share with you some of the things that stimulate me and give me inspiration along the way...

I want to start with this cute video by Lane Smith, this is a book trailer video for a short animated film based on Lane Smith's 'It's a Book', an adorable picture book for children that celebrates traditional books.

There is something romantic in books and maybe some people see tham as outdated and outmoded, but between the romantic character and the perishable and morbid nature of tham to me they just always remain enchanted.

Here's another artist that uses books in his works, he arranges them in space, builds with them architectural sculpture or carving them to create a whole new shape. His name is Miler Lagos.

Here is a short explanation about his work:

"Miler Lagos’ sculptural works and interventions invite the viewer to reconsider an object’s material properties. By rendering paper and sculpting foam, Lagos produces objects which appear to be made of solid wood or cast bronze. While his works initially seem to be revisiting disputes between the original and its copy, his choices of material or subject matter often engage with local environmental or specific political concerns.

Lagos has made an extensive body of work by developing a technique of carving piles of compressed paper into singular log-like forms. In El papel aguanta todo (Paper can handle anything), 2008, Lagos incorporates various reference books into this process to create an installation of tree-like sculptures. In each piece the books’ spines and titles are left partially revealed, drawing attention to the physical quality of these specialised texts. On the other hand, the abundance of printed material included in the installation points to the homogenising nature of the books format."

This was taken from The Latin American Art Journal - here