{ Brian Dettmer }

While you could say Dettmer has little respect for books in gutting them so thoroughly with his knife, I'd say these wounds are the highest flattery: transforming dusty and out-dated encyclopedias and such into absolutely compelling sculptures. And if I were allowed to muse (which I am, since this is my blog), I'd say there's something beautiful happening in Dettmer's choice to use these works that compile and reflect our shared language and collective memories and stories as the raw material for his sculptures, a kind of acknowledgment of the material from which each of us form our own lives. We do not shape our lives from a formless clay, but from a common language, a shared world. And Dettmer is showing us that this is not a limitation to art, but its very possibility. (Please view these images full, as the devil - and the beauty - is in the details.)


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