Reading Hot Spots in New York City
Reading Hot Spots in New York City, 2017 / Varied edition of 10 / Archival inkjet photos by the artist on Dobbin Mill papers with embedded pieces of Brooklyn Museum Library catalog cards / Found map & text.
Size: 13.25” x 9.5” x 1.5” Box) / 2 books: 4" x 8" and 8" x 4.25" / 7 cards
A map from the National Book Foundation called Reading Hot Spots in New York City evolved into this box set with two books and a packet of cards.
The thematic focus is on book collections, starting with my own. I appropriated a sentence from a random group of 340 books in my library, each sentence selected from another numbered page. I “assembled” a text, which was then color-coded and printed in one half of the dos-á-dos book, 340B: Sentences. In 340A, the titles & authors of these books are listed, after the page number where I found the sentences. I printed onto cards the texts that pertain to reading, interspersed with photographs of favorite NYC bookshelves (from the NYPL Spencer Collection to a Time Square magazine rack).
The second book was constructed from the actual map itself; I filigree-cut, refolded, and sewed it into a double pamphlet book structure. A selection of sentences was embedded into the map to form a playful short story. And thirdly, I printed onto cards the texts that pertain to reading, interspersed with photographs of favorite NYC bookshelves (from the NYPL Spencer Collection to a Time Square magazine rack).
Together, these three components are my homage to the world of books in my beloved New York City.
