White Library

White Library was commissioned for the Athenaeum Library for its relevance to Rare Book Week Melbourne and suitablility for the 2015 Melbourne Nite Art event and is part of a renewed annual program to invite artists to install artists books at the Athenaeum, a site for exhibiting artists starting with the Australian Impressionists, now active for 175 years. The visual project reflected on the current status of libraries with an embedded installation, addressing the nature of a library, the relevant context of artists books and potential future form and function of libraries as opposed to previous presentations of artists' books who followed a personal aesthetic. I also worked with the Athenaeum archive, selecting complementary manuscripts for the establishment of the Institution and Art School for display. Critique and commentary on the nature of libraries from a visual perspective has led to the selection of components from the exhibition, several works having been acquired for the permanent collection, including an archived lecture I presented. My accompanying lecture in the Rare Book Week program at the installation site refered to recent visual white library projects by artists Rachel Whiteread and MONA to engage in contemporary dialogue in the field and discussion of concepts around the idea of the visualised library by Walter Benjamin, Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges. Both lecture and exhibition were attended by in excess of 500 people.