PRESS



Two days left to check out "Library Science"
by Hank Hoffman
Connecticut Art Scene
January 26, 2012

Last Days to Check Out Artspace’s Library Science
by Christopher Arnott
Daily Nutmeg
January 26, 2012

A World of Books, Collections at the Crossroads
by Yanan Wang
Yale Daily News
January 20, 2012

All things biblio illuminate 'Library Science' at Artspace
by Donna Doherty
New Haven Register
January 14, 2012

Library Science at Artspace, New Haven
by Frances Brent
Flaneur
December 22, 2011

Library Science at Artspace in New Haven, CT
Library as Incubator Project
November 28, 2011

Dewey Decimal Didn’t Die
by Joshua Mamis
New Haven Independent
November 25, 2011

28 Days in New Haven: Part 1
bklynbiblio
November 20, 2011

Tell me again how the stories will differ… (for Artspace New Haven)
by Erin Dorney
Library Scenester
November 19, 2011

The Art and Science of Libraries:
An interview with Rachel Gugelberger
by Rebecca Gross
The Big Read
National Endowment for the Arts
November 14, 2011

Library Science - Notes on a Conversation with Rachel Gugelberger
Interview by Claire Ruud
...might be good
Issue #178, "Any Port in a Storm"
November 11, 2011

Library Science at Artspace in New Haven through Jan. 28
by Susan Hood
CT.com
November 9, 2011

Exploring the "tangible and tactile"
by Stephen Scarpa
The Arts Paper
Arts Council of Greater New Haven
October 28, 2011

The Library in the Age of Digital Reproduction
(for Artspace New Haven)
by Wayne Bivens-Tatum
Academic Librarian:
On Libraries, Rhetoric, Poetry, History, & Moral Philosophy
Princeton University
October 27, 2011

The Internet Can't Kill Libraries
by Susan Hood
CT.com
September 13, 2011

New Haven Wins 7 NEA Grants
by Christine Saari
New Haven Independent
May 17, 2011

Library Science - Press Release

Two days left to check out Library Science

by Hank Hoffman
Daily Nutmeg
January 26, 2012

Libraries are not an obvious choice as an art-making subject. But, as the show Library Science at Artspace in New Haven through Saturday demonstrates, the topic is rich with resonance. This sprawling group show featuring national and international artists takes the subjects of libraries and books as springboards for wide-ranging works of imagination and philosophical and intellectual engagement. It comes at a time when the Internet and the digitization of information are usurping the role of the book. [READ MORE...]

Last Days to Check Out Artspace’s Library Science

by Christopher Arnott
Daily Nutmeg
January 26, 2012

Artspace’s outstanding postmodern hyper-literary multi-media Library Science exhibit is rapidly approaching its due date. Jan. 28 is when the non-profit arts institution at the corner of Temple and Crown streets closes the books on its state-wide, multi-venue project. Artspace has celebrated the literary arts before...Library Science is special, however. [READ MORE...]

A World of Books, Collections at the Crossroads

by Yanan Wang
Yale Daily News
January 20, 2012

For most students, the library is a place of work. It is a refuge from the sometimes unduly social atmosphere of a college campus — a haven in which papers and problem sets are completed under the glare of rows of computer screens and fluorescent lights. But what about the library as a maze? As a story, tucked within discarded card catalogues? What about the library as a playground? [READ MORE...]

All things biblio illuminate 'Library Science' at Artspace

by Donna Doherty
New Haven Register
January 14, 2012

It has always seemed like an oxymoron. Those who get degrees to become librarians study “library science.” Kind of seems like mixing apples and oranges: literature and books requiring a science to classify them. “Library Science,” the exhibit which continues through Jan. 28 at Artspace gallery, has a little bit of that juxtaposition to it also. [READ MORE...]

Library Science at Artspace, New Haven

by Frances Brent
Flaneur
December 22, 2011

When I was a child, one of my favorite books was about a girl who went to the library every day. Under the impression that all the world’s books were housed there, she thought she could read them all. Her plan was to go alphabetically, a single volume a day, not permitting herself to skip a book, not even a boring one. I so empathized with her that, for a while, I had the same plan, never questioning whether the strategy was commendable and never guessing the library as it existed both in my experience and imagination–smelling of old, frayed book covers and ink pads used for stamping due-dates—was temporary. [READ MORE...]

Library Science at Artspace in New Haven, CT

Library as Incubator Project
November 28, 2011

Several people sent the Library as Incubator Project information about this exhibition, titled Library Science, which is now on at the Artspace gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.

When we read through the introductory materials, we realized that this exhibition embodies one of the goals of the Library as Incubator Project: to celebrate the inspirational effect that libraries can have on the creative artist, and how artists can highlight not only individual libraries through their work, but bring attention to some of the bigger issues that modern libraries are facing. [READ MORE...]

Dewey Decimal Didn’t Die

by Joshua Mamis
New Haven Independent
November 25, 2011

Some might call the word “racist” scrawled in thick black ink on a library catalog card vandalism. On the wall of a new Artspace exhibit, it is both jarring and beautiful.

It also reveals the heart of “Library Science,” a captivating new group show of 17 national and international artists.

“Library Science” isn’t the rarified, marble-stuffy affair its name might imply. It’s thoughtful, playful, and provocative. The interaction of the human with the library—and, by extension, books—turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, revealing creative vitality and political rebellion outside the bindings. Most stunning of all is that so much of the work is simply beautiful. [READ MORE...]

28 New Haven Days: Part 1

bklynbiblio
November 14, 2011

Shermania had written me about an exhibition at Artspace called Library Science, and I'm so glad he told me. It's the perfect combination of contemporary art and librarianship coming together in a way that would satisfy any bibliophile or library nerd. Candida Höfer was of course included, showcasing one of her large-scale photographs of libraries, but a number of other artists in the show were new to me and had some interesting ideas about libraries, books, and cataloging. [READ MORE...]

Tell me again how the stories will differ… (for Artspace New Haven)

by Erin Dorney
Library Scenester
November 19, 2011

Artspace New Haven is a nonprofit that showcases local and national visual art, providing access, excellence, and education for the benefit of the public and the greater arts community. Its current exhibition is titled “Library Science”, conceived by New York-based curator Rachel Gugelberger.

...

I’m fairly certain that when the first e-reader was announced, my family released a collective sigh of relief. Surely not because this technology marked the beginning of an era wherein economics and privacy governed the access of information, but because they assumed they would not have to lug another single box of my books to a new residence. In 27 years I have lived in six apartments and a closet (part Harry Potter reference, part truth), each move accompanied by box upon box of skillfully-penned, woefully-bound trade paperbacks. Is it blasphemous for a librarian to prefer the flimsy, mass-produced edition over the handsome hardcover volume? Although my personal library may be organized by color, it does not exist simply as an element of design. No, my books are here to be used, abused, written on, bent up, dropped in tubs, covered in sand, read, re-read, shared, lost, given away. Plainly put, my books make my home. [READ MORE...]

The Art and Science of Libraries:
An Interview with Rachel Gugelberger

by Rebecca Gross
The Big Read
National Endowment for the Arts
November 14, 2011

As someone who is completely enamored with libraries, I was immediately intrigued when I read about Library Science, a new exhibit at Artspace in New Haven, Connecticut. Open through January 28 and funded in part by the NEA, the exhibit explores our multifaceted relationships with libraries, as well as the many roles libraries have come to serve: they are places of order, stores of knowledge, community centers, and home to one of the most rapidly changing technologies of our time—the book. Featuring pieces from 17 different artists, the exhibit also includes four site-specific installations at libraries across New Haven. I spoke with curator Rachel Gugelberger about the exhibit and her own thoughts on reading and researching in the digital age. [READ MORE...]

Library Science:
Notes on a Conversation with Rachel Gugelberger

Interview by Claire Ruud
...might be good
Issue #178, "Any Port in a Storm"
November 11, 2011

In the paragraphs that follow, I recall an hour-long Skype conversation with Rachel Gugelberger, curator of Library Science at Artspace, New Haven. In the context of the exhibition, it is fitting that my computer did not save the majority of our conversation; technology’s memory having failed, I was left to rely on my own. Gugelberger points out that a work in the show by David Bunn explores this reliance on the analogue in the event of digital failure. When the library of the Brooklyn Museum invited Bunn to do a project with its recently discarded card catalogue, he arrived to find that the replacement online catalogue (Voyager) had crashed and the electronic backup had been erased. Bunn’s No Voyager Record (2008), included in Library Science, projects the physical cards marked with the librarians' annotations to restore the lost and missing entries. The work captures the digital’s continued reliance on the analogue, despite rapidly advancing technology. [READ MORE...]

Library Science at Artspace in New Haven through Jan. 28

by Susan Hood
CT.com
November 9, 2011

Do you curl up with a book or a nook, kindle or iPad? Where do you turn for news and entertainment? Where do you go to learn?

Our browse-at-will, on-demand habits and reliance on the World Wide Web is changing myriad professions and institutions, arguably none as much as the field of Library and Information Science.

But isn't the internet a virtual library? Nope. Despite the pace of digitalizing books, images, and streaming audio, there is little to be had there, in comparison to libraries. Not just for reasons of copyright, licensing, and fee-based usage, either. [READ MORE...]

Exploring the "tangible and tactile"

by Stephen Scarpa
The Arts Paper
Arts Council of Greater New Haven
October 28, 2011

There is a quiet hum inside as a few patrons wander the new books section and clerks busy themselves at their computers. A few people quietly thumb through paperbacks. An older woman tutors a woman in her 30s. “To subside means to stop,” the woman says, reviewing a paper with her student. Another woman looks up a medical diagram of a tooth on the Internet.

The main branch of the library has a grandeur ordinarily saved for churches, municipal edifices, or old-time banks. Wandering through the library, the greatest concentration of people there that day clustered around the brand new computer lab on the ground floor. One man distractedly thumbed through that day’s edition of the New Haven Register, waiting for a friend to finish her time online. [READ MORE...]

The Library in the Age of Digital Reproduction
(for Artspace New Haven)

by Wayne Bivens-Tatum
Academic Librarian:
On Libraries, Rhetoric, Poetry, History, & Moral Philosophy
Princeton University
October 27, 2011

I barely remem­ber a time when I wasn’t an active library user. From the first grade I recall trips to the school library, where the librar­ian would seat us at com­mon tables and place a num­ber of books at the cen­ter for us to choose among. Instead of choos­ing one of those books, I always got per­mis­sion to wan­der the shelves and find one on my own. Even then, my rela­tion­ship to the library was active, quest­ing, ques­tion­ing, and the library was a place I enjoyed vis­it­ing. The library was the place with knowl­edge. It had an aura. [READ MORE...]

The Internet Can't Kill Libraries

by Susan Hood
CT.com
September 13, 2011

Do you curl up with a book or a nook, kindle or iPad? Where do you turn for news, entertainment and aesthetic enjoyment? Where do you go to learn?

Our browse-at-will, on-demand habits and reliance on the World Wide Web are changing myriad professions and institutions, arguably none as much as the field of Library and Information Science.

But isn't the internet a virtual library? Nope. [READ MORE...]

New Haven Wins 7 NEA Grants

by Christine Saari
New Haven Independent
May 17, 2011

The National Endowment for the Arts has just released information about the latest round of grants for not-for-profit arts organizations nationwide, with Connecticut receiving $1,279,000 in dedicated funding. Within Connecticut, 7 of the 16 arts grants awarded will serve to support New Haven organizations in the categories of Learning in the Arts and Artistic Excellence. Grants are being made to Artspace, Elm Shakespeare Company, Neighborhood Music School, New Haven International Festival of Arts & Ideas, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Yale University Art Gallery and Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Artspace has received support for a group exhibition titled Library Science which will take place this fall. The exhibition will examine ways in which physical, intellectual, and emotional relationships to libraries have changed as libraries adapt to the digital world. Guest curator Rachel Gugelberger plans to address the ongoing debate among bibliophiles about the effect of technology, such as the digital archiving of millions of books, on the fate of the printed book. [READ MORE...]

PRESS RELEASE

Mickey Smith, Corroborating Information, 2010, Courtesy of the artist and INVISIBLE-EXPORTS; Erica Baum, Untitled (Suburban Homes), 1997, Courtesy of the artist and Bureau; Candida Höfer, Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra IV, 2006, Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery.

For Immediate Release

ARTSPACE

50 Orange Street (Corner of Orange & Crown)

New Haven, CT 06510

Phone • (203) 772-2709

E-mail • michael@artspacenh.org

http://artspacenh.org

Artspace is pleased to present Library Science, an exhibition curated by Rachel Gugelberger, Senior Curator at Exit Art, New York. Bringing together a selection of work by 17 international artists, Library Science contemplates our personal, intellectual and physical relationship to the library as this venerable institution—and the information it contains—is being radically transformed by the digital era.

Through drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, painting and web-based projects, the artists in Library Science explore the library through its unique forms, attributes and systems: from public stacks to private collections, from unique architectural spaces to the people who populate them, from traditional card catalogues to that ever-growing "cyber-library," the World Wide Web.

Library Science takes its title from two sources: the interdisciplinary field of library and information science, and Eleanor Antin’s 1971 conceptual work of the same name, which used library classification methods to represent and archive the identities of living women.

Artists include: Erica Baum (New York), Jorge Méndez Blake (Mexico), David Bunn (California), Chris Coffin (New York), Madeline Djerejian (New York), Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson (New York), Philippe Gronon (France), José Hernández (New Jersey), Candida Höfer (Germany), Nina Katchadourian (New York), Reynard Loki (New York), Loren Madsen (California), Allen Ruppersberg (New York), Mickey Smith (New York), Blane De St. Croix (New York) and Xiaoze Xie (California).

The desire to collect information in the form of a library dates back to Sumer (modern- day Iraq) in the 4th millennium BC. Gutenberg’s printing press (c. 1440), Xerox’s copying machine (1959) and the World Wide Web (1991) have all played a critical role in the dissemination of information. As the digitization of books continues apace—Google’s mission, for example, is “to organize the world’s information”—how the traditional library ultimately adapts to the digital age remains to be seen. Until then, as Library Science reveals, the library remains a fertile site for exploration and discovery, even if none of its books are opened.

New Haven boasts a large number of notable, unconventional and historic libraries. In conjunction with the exhibition at Artspace, Connecticut artists were invited to submit proposals for research residencies towards creating site- and situation-specific projects at local libraries. Selected artists are: Colin Burke (The Whitney Library of the New Haven Museum), Heather Lawless (The New Haven Free Public Library), Andy Deck & Carol Padberg (Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University) and Tyler Starr (Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale).

An exhibition at The Institute Library, timed to open with Library Science, features a series of library-based portraits by Meredith Miller and Rob Rocke. All participating institutions are in walking distance from Artspace.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Library Science Film Festival—taking place at libraries throughout Connecticut and presented in partnership with the Connecticut Library Consortium—features documentaries, independent films, Hollywood classics and television episodes in which the library plays a significant role.

The online catalog at www.libraryscienceexhibition.org features essays by curator Rachel Gugelberger; Jennifer Tobias, Reader Services Librarian at the Museum of Modern Art; and Andrew Beccone, founder and director of the Reanimation Library.

Library Science is generously supported with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the David T. Langrock Foundation and a Strategic Initiative Grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

Artspace is New Haven’s largest independent visual arts venue, showcasing a mix of local and national artists in a downtown corner storefront in the historic Ninth Square district. Our mission is to catalyze artistic efforts; to connect artists, audiences and resources; and to redefine art spaces.