I thought I’d seen every type of book carving imaginable, until I ran across these jaw dropping creations by Guy Laramee. His works are so sculptural, so movingly natural in their form, they’ve really touched me. His works are inspired by a fascination with so-called progress in society: a thinking which says the book is dead, libraries are obsolete and technology is the only way of the future. His thoughts:
“One might say: so what? Do we really believe that “new technologies” will change anything concerning our existential dilemma, our human condition? And even if we could change the content of all the books on earth, would this change anything in relation to the domination of analytical knowledge over intuitive knowledge? What is it in ourselves that insists on grabbing, on casting the flow of experience into concepts?”
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Carving into the discarded stacks of books, he has created fantastic, romantic landscapes which remind us that though our fascinations and the value we put on different ideas have changed, we as a species have not evolved that much.
“Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.”
See more of his beautifully meditative works at guylaramee.com.
Via: etoday.ru
Cool Post!
truly awesome!
Neat work. Hats off to the artist(s).
I wonder if they can make a mount rushmore
Atit
[http://athoughtfactory.blogspot.com]
cool but defeats the point because the books cannot be read !
WOW those are just to cool.
Very cool art I like it a lot
Dont know wheter to be mad or impressed….the artist ruined books :/
The destruction of a book is a sacrilege no matter which way you look at it. There must be a less destructive way to create art.
There are worse crimes than destroying books.. like, not reading them.
These are soul-stirring. At first glance, what takes my breath away is how strongly natural they appear, and i feel the same awe as when observing the most simple yet magnificent aspects of our earth. Then i come back to the medium from which these came about – a book. All that is will return to what it was. I have just begun to explore the art of book carving, and these have provided much inspiration. Your work is beautiful.
I don’t think it CAN defeat any point. Art is neither right nor wrong.
This is probably the most amazing art I’ve seen in the last year. And I see a lot of art websites.
I look at a lot of websites, but this one is unique. yes.
Although for me it’s kind of stressing to see all those books destroyed, the work is absolutely fantastic. Congratulations!
This is an awful waste of books. These books could have been so much. What does it say of a species that mourns the burning of the libraries of Alexandria yet praises the fool who perpetrates such intellectual idiocy as seen above. Use unwritten diaries at least. Do not defile literature. It should be considered a crime.
Simply amazing!
At the other hand, you have that many of the real landscapes represented, were destroyed to produce books. Welcome to literature in the web !
I am interested in the method. Did you clamp the books together ? Drill them? Use a chop saw ? Vatican art stone and paint? nice imagination! Share if you can.
really cool
Amazing idea!!! Long and eternal life to the books!!!
Wow. This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Art really is everywhere. Thanks for sharing…
I love the art form that came from these old books but at the same time I’m saddened as an avid reader
This is truly amazing, just makes me think, of how some people have such creative minds and talents to do something like this…wow!
mind blowing.. infact out of mind… art is always out of mind.. something of the other world.. great magnum opus..
I don’t think it matters that the books can’t be read, the amazing landscapes symbolise the magical worlds inside books which many people have forgotten.
i think that this art is pretty amazing , but the only thing that bothers me is that the artists use books
couldnt they use something else ? i mean books are in art its literature !!!
superb
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
absolutely wonderful…..i love found material art, and i love books…what a beautiful concept and amazing creations.
As art and symbolism, these are both beautiful and thought provoking, but ultimately the artist has desecrated the work of another artist and extinguished ideas, and such hubris defeats justification.
Lu Davila ” At the other hand, you have that many of the real landscapes represented, were destroyed to produce books. Welcome to literature in the web !
You were spot on! How many times does a book actually get read and reread for the tree that lost its life for. I too love books, but as an artist, I can most appreciate the art of this GREAT ARTIST.
Beauty comes to those that chose to look for it. These books have been carved with great care and love… and will remain long after each book has lost its appeal to the owner. Celebrate that Guy Laramee created something so absolutely stunning and yet provacative enough to make the viewer question “why”. Guy Laramee, if my book could be turned into your art to last into other centuries… I would offer up my proses anytime you asked. . . I have a feeling there are many other authors that would agree. Best to you Sir Laramee!
I think those who are bemoaning the use of books to create these sculptures are missing the big picture. Working in a public library system, I see how many books are destroyed everyday, by age, careless customers, poor workmanship or just to make way for new ones. It is great to see something beautiful created from something that would eitherwise end up being recycled some other way, or even worse, tossed in some landfill somewhere. Ultimately, it is not the existence the physical book that matters, it is the words between the covers. In our digital information age we have much to celebrate as more and more of what we once read on the pages of a mortal book now has near eternal existance.
SWEEET5
LIBRARYWENCH, I came here to say exactly that. I am a lifelong reader but you pretentious “books are precious” people are idiots. 10′s of millions of copies of Twilight were printed. Is it sacriligious if one of those books gets destroyed, intentional or otherwise? The words and ideas matter and in today’s world, the physical book is only worth the paper it’s printed on. It’s not like the guy is is destroying one-of-a-kind works of art. Get some perspective.
For those concerned that books were needlessly destroyed in the making of this art… you have no idea in the world how hard it is to get rid of obsolete books. Encyclopedia’s for example, but that is just the tip of th ice berg. I work for a “books to prisoners” organization…and people think that prisoners should be grateful to read anything. But nobody is going to read a “Study of Ground Water Contamination” from 1962 (for instance). Besides acedemic titles, there are tons of books that are just not worth reading. Period. Make art!!!! So much better than the dumpster or recycle bin.
Seems to me that you got carried away with a CNC machine.
I recognized several scenes from Petra, including the “treasury.” Well done!
I’m looking forward to the artist branching out into using deceased human body parts, properly embalmed, to carve little faces of other living people. That would be unique too. Oooooh wait! I’ve got it! Let’s take these “sculptures” and grind them back into pulp! Then an author can take that pulp and write a book about how he got to grind up these sculptures because nobody looked at them for awhile. Yes!
Pretty sure my first comment, although valid and “artistic”, is going to be moderated into the trash bin….so I’m submitting this one in addition.
I think that these “sculptures”, which destroy the work of other artists (that we call “writers”), should in turn now be ground back into pulp, and given to blind writers for the creation of Braille books describing how they avenged the original writers of the books destroyed by the artist. I mean, hey, blind people can’t see mountains, and they can’t see these works, so why should they care about them? The sculptor couldn’t see the art in the books he destroyed, and sure can’t read Braille, so the dance will now be complete.
( I imagine he doesn’t read very well in the first place.)
All’s fair. It’s art, right?
Books are definitely precious things but it’s the stories on the pages and not the actual books themselves that matter. The stories of Alice in Wonderland and Huck Finn won’t lose any merit or value or anything by getting carved up in the physical form of one out of MANY copies that are printed over and over again. I believe it’s a very creative piece and well created sculptural object and I really admire the craft of it all.
I am a librarian. I hate to see books thrown away. Yet I constantly see books being sent to landfills because they are so outdated or tattered that nobody wants them anymore. Is it more of a “sacrilege” to send them to rot in a pile of garbage, or to give them new life in a new form? Unless you are willing to personally rescue and care for every single book ever written, no matter the age or condition, don’t be upset when someone chooses to love them enough to make them into something beautiful. I would love to get one of these pieces for our library!
In answer to Future World’s last post: In your way of thinking, why should a blind person care about print books? They can’t read them, right? But at least in this form, they can feel the textures created by this amazingly creative use of books that I’m betting would end up as roof paper or land-fill fodder if not rescued by the artist. And the best stories will always be there, just for the telling.
This is a perfect example of the ‘Circle of Life’, but in the form of art.
The artist has created new stories by using old ones.
Take a moment to appreciate what different people create using their imagination – whether you like it or not, or are ‘disgraced’ at the small amount of books destroyed (in comparison to the amount of books in the world, with thousands of copies), you cannot deny that this is beautiful.
‘every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end…’
Chill out.
I love books. And I think this is an incredible, incredible art. I worked at a retirement home and I rescued a few books out of a trashcan…they were all foreign language dictionaries from the 1960s. No one would read them. They were going to be wasted. I gave them to my friends in art school. Which is worse?
What about sculptures made of food for competitions that no one is going to eat? Isn’t that a horrible thing when people are starving?
I love books. I do. I have a library in my house. I’m an avid reader. But why must books serve only one purpose? Literature is wonderful, but in the end, it’s just a book. An object. A thing. He’s not burning books and calling it art. He’s not tearing all the pages out and scattering them across the room and calling it art. He’s carefully carving the most incredible book sculptures I’ve ever seen. Literature is art, sculpture is art. I’d be amazed if a book I wrote was turned into something so beautiful. Calm down.
I respect the comments of many of you who point to the fact that when books are old and worn, they are destroyed anyway, and when books are mass produced, like “Twilight,” they are not individually precious. However, the artist does not appear to choose such books. His appear to have beautiful covers with bindings that are still tight, which is part of what makes the art so beautiful. When GROV called those who have a different opinion “Idiots,” he/she cheapened the worth of his/her opinions. I am a published author and a collector of art and books, so I can see both sides of the interesting debate expressed in the comments. Maybe I would find it easier to accept the destruction of books to make such beuatiful and symbolic sculptures if the artist dumpster dived for his materials.
Questioning whether we should pay more attention to books, or more attention to mountains. I think it’s a valid thing to think about… the virtual world has detracted from creation to some degree.
i don’t know whether to cry or applaud. they are stunning though
This guy is amazingly talented and I’m sure he bought the books for the purpose of art. Great work.
You people who complain about books being destroyed to make this beautiful art are so silly. It’s not like it’s the ONLY copy of those books being destroyed. Give me a break. I echo the sentiment of the commenter about the Twilight series. A waste of paper, and yet how many of those have been printed? Seems that is a bigger travesty against nature, literature, whichever noun you choose. This artist chose a medium not often seen, and I for one applaud it.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!