Turning books into modern sculptures, a look at Jonathan Callan
Jonathan Callan is an English artist born in Manchester who now lives and works in London. For many years now Callan’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the world. Callan is a contemporary artist whose works are sculptures that primarily consist of books as its medium. Sometimes combining multiple books with screws that form one large sculpture, or having one book slightly modified, one example is the work of a book held open by a large cut of concrete. His work preset many questions without answers and even the meaning of his work the artist often doesn’t know or doesn’t tell.
“An artist might be the least reliable authority on the meaning of their own work. Giving a reason for something having been made is not equivalent to giving the meaning of the work.” – Jonathan Callan (Via the artist website)
In the quote below the artist sums up the concept for his works quite well. “I have made a lot of work using books. Not because I have any fetishistic attitude towards them but because of the realization that words are the poor and inefficient servants of experience. I might add that I’m not attempting any criticism of writers or the craft of writing but that has grown up within what is historically a literary culture I found myself valuing and gauging experience (which included art) only if it could be expressed and explored with words. As a visual artist, this represented an interesting problem. Most people will rarely think of a book as an object, the words within are regarded as far more important than the form without. Because this seemed to perfectly express the problem I had in thinking about how art was discussed and how its meanings were valued, I began to regard books in the same way a potter might regard clay. In some senses, I think of this as another way of approaching the equation of form and content, and how arguments have always been conducted about their relative importance.” – Jonathan Callan (Via the artist website)
Sources: The artist website here.
Images © Jonathan Callan
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