Comments on: nicholas jones

By: Mathew Wilson

Mathew Wilson — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:12:22 +0000

Artist Sam Winston produced a similar lovely piece using all 20 volumes of the oxford English dictionary http://www.samwinston.com/Sam_Winston.pdf

By: Vickie

Vickie — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:39:13 +0000

My initial reaction is the same as Steve B’s.
Only if the books are crappy romance novels, produced for the purpose, or rescued from the trash/recycling bin.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:42:08 +0000

SteveB, calm down. There are millions of copies of books printed in this world, heaven forbid a handful of them are turned into something creative like that. And how do you know those aren’t books originally created by the artist himself for this explicit purpose?? Geeze.

routedereuil, Those probably ARE the brilliant work of a merchandiser. We have to do similar (albeit, not as fantastic as the ones posted) ones for our store (not Anthropologie), though.

Thanks for posting these! I’d love to own such a lovely sculpture ;)

By: Lucy

Lucy — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:44:46 +0000

Thanks so much for the link Grace!

Well… I guess good artwork should always instigate discussion! I do understand the arguments put forward here… however, I must agree with Leigh and Ann… I don’t think ‘destroying’ is really a fair or accurate description of Nicholas’ use of these books! I would say Nicholas breathes new life into these books, and gives us a new way to appreciate and respond to them. Nicholas has received a large quantity of books from Melbourne University library that were bound for the bin. He also has friends who create new notebooks and journals using vintage book covers. They remove the inside pages from vintage books and pass these onto Nicholas to use in his work.

ps) Grace I bought the one in the second photo you selected! we must have similar taste… :)

By: emily

emily — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:10:53 +0000

we used to do things like this to our textbooks in elementary school (not nearly as cool, and never actually folded – would’ve been in trouble!) We would bend each page over into the spine to make a book of loops. Clearly we were artistic geniuses.

By: Jeska

Jeska — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:35:57 +0000

Stunning!

By: kayte

kayte — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:01:45 +0000

so pretty! we did a lot of book sculptures like this at anthro in new york too so the work that the commenter above saw in atlanta probably was done by a merchandiser.
most of the books we used were really old random book s that were already kind of falling apart (spines broken, super-mildewy) so i don’t see any problem with recycling them for art.

By: Ann

Ann — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:35:07 +0000

Oh, come off it. Perhaps the sculpture references the subject matter. It’s not like we’re all sitting around waiting for another precious tome to come off the original Guttenberg.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:26:58 +0000

I admit I initially cringe at the idea of destroying a book, but after seeing Brian Dettmer's Book Autopsies, I can't help but appreciate the transmogrification of one great work into another. If you haven't seen his work, it's well worth a look: Brian Dettmer's Book Autopsies

By: Leigh

Leigh — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:22:49 +0000

I think these are absolutely amazing and lovely. You can tell that Nicholas takes the text into account in how it will play into the final appearance of the work. You couldn’t get the same effect with plain paper. I don’t have any problem whatsoever with using a book (i.e. found object) as the basis for a sculpture any more than another material. I think it is strange, Steve, that you would find every copy of every book too precious to be used as raw material for art, especially for such beautiful art.