叹为观止 书的艺术

Books, we are told, are on the way out — soon to be replaced by iPads and other widgets, complete with fake page-flipping gimmicks to assure us that we are in fact, still reading a book.

We’ll forget for the moment that movies were supposed to be the death of books, just as surely as TV was to be the death of movies and the internet the death of TV, and assume the pundits are correct. So what to do with the remaining dead-tree editions?

UK artist and art director Su Blackwell has one answer, in the form of beautiful cut-book sculptures.

She cuts the pages with a scalpel, forming the printed paper into various forms. Some are elaborate scenes, sitting atop the books from which they were formed, some as simple as flowers in which the ink from the printed lines is arranged to form the dark-hued edges of the blossoms. Some are arranged as dioramas in wooden and glass cases, at times theatrically lit.

In addition to her website, Blackwell also maintins a blog in which she lists upcoming exhibitions and installations.

Her themes frequently seem to be of fantasy, escape, freedom or enchantment — apt for the medium that has so long captured the ephemeral; even if the medium itself were to become ephemeral.

[Via A White Carousel by way of Sean Cowen and Eric Orchard]