Beube, Douglas – Models for the 90’s.
(Beube, Douglas) Models for the 90’s. Three volumes. Artist’s altered books by Douglas Beube. [Brooklyn, New York.] 1994. 12.25″ x 9″. Three wrappered journals – one with black cover and two with white covers. Each journal is dye-cut through the book with only two words: the three volumes read “FEED ME”, “FUCK ME”, “FORGET ME”. All laid in a black cloth dropback box with a white title label on the spine, and the six words in white imprinted on the front. Unique. A stunning example of Doug Beube’s contemporary innovative book art – a visual experience. Fine.
“My work explores “the book itself”, an antiquated technology that is still purposeful in a digital age. The codex, which literally means a “block of wood” in Latin, is undeviating in its essential form; its fixity is antithetical to the capabilities of the computer to function on a synergetic/simultaneous plane. Although the codex, compared to computers, is undeniably limited in its capacity to store, perpetuate, generate and recreate information, I accept these boundaries. (I’m not referring to the paginated works of Artists’ Books; this is an entirely different category that has flourished with Photoshop and Quark; Artists’ Books remain an open-ended medium.) I apply quasi-software functions such as cutting, pasting and hidden text onto an analogue system; it doesn’t work-it can’t. The codex is intractable as a technology; you read linearly from beginning to end. It is essentially inflexible. That is its built-in personality flaw; that is its elegance. I began changing the book’s structure in 1980 by pushing the physical properties of the book, piercing, gouging and excavating it, as if it were a thrilling, previously undiscovered site in an archeological dig. As an artist my goal is to transform how a book functions outside a linear read for an outdated technology, the codex, becomes something that is new and visually meaningful. My sculptures primarily use discarded and found books, which the viewer will recognize for its utilitarian quality. When necessary I will purchase a book or fabricate materials for a specific idea. The viewer visually engages with the re-contextualized bookwork, which might otherwise have gone unnoticed in its customary setting, and participates in its transformation through a critique or dialogue. “To visually engage with the object” as a visual experience, is my objective; beyond concept, above references, each piece explores the reciprocity between meaning and structure as comprehended subliminally through the senses.” – Douglas Beube.
Related items: Catalogue 37 - Summer 2009, Douglas Beube