Li Silberberg – Bibliothek/Library

Bibliothek/Library

The Installation Sculpture "Bibliothek/Library" by Li Silberberg in the Philological Library of Freie Universität Berlin

Introduction by Dr. Klaus Werner
Director (ret.) of the Philological Library of the FU
June 15, 2022 at 6 pm

Text Semjon Contemporary 2022
The artist has now been working day in and day out for 23 years on a series of artists' books that have become her personal library.

There are two types of it: the book as a volume of the daily recorded thoughts, as an accumulation of sentences written in the block of lines, the dated days also visually distinguished.
These daily entries are the preparation of the actual, but belong indispensably to the 'Great', the proud work of her library, which now includes 186 volumes. The concretely described and designated books count in the same period meanwhile 41 copies. The installation sculpture gathers a total of 181 volumes. The recording of thoughts and feelings, the weaving in of thought drawings in between can be understood as an act of mental post-processing that reflects the first creative level: The more intuitive inscribing and rubbing in of thoughts - and the actual state - with bare hands, sometimes in their purest nakedness, that is, in the immediacy of finger skin and the uncoated wetted book paper. Li Silberberg strokes with his bare hands the two pages of the opened book in a circling or recently also in a horizontal direction. Dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times. The inscription of her present state and the memory of the past is done with closed eyes, and she sits cross-legged on a joga cushion. The artist regards this prolonged act of creation as her daily meditation, sinks into herself and always has (skin) contact with the book, the carrier of her knowledge and experience to be charged. Her creative center also has the character of a small meditation room.

Her artist's books were first staged in 2020 in the street salon of Semjon Contemporary as an expansive installation »Bibliothekduring the exhibition »Cut and Rubbed« (3d visit)

3d visit

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