A new exhibition in Paris called Pliure (meaning “fold” in French) at the Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian is an exploration of the “artistic metamorphosis of books.”

Featured works range from René of Lorena’s “Book of Hours” from the 15^th century, William Morris’s 1896 “The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer,” Marcel Duchamp’s “Readymade Malheureux” (Unhappy Readymade) from 1919, Ed Ruscha’s “Various Small Fires and Milk” from 1964, and Lawrence Weiner’s 2003  Deep Blue Sky / Light Blue Sky. A few film selections are shown on loops including the scene in François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 based on Ray Bradbury’s novel.

The Graphic Arts Collection within the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton’s Firestone Library posted this translation of the exhibition website:

The exhibition “Fold” is an essay on the book and “the infinite sum of its possible” (Blanchot). It shows the book’s potential as an artistic gesture; how art can transform the book and the book, in turn, transforms art. The show presents the book as a laboratory of aesthetic experiences, driving itself to experiences. The exhibition is neither retrospective nor anthology nor historical, “Fold” does not claim to embrace the whole theme or prove some theory, but attempts to show how books have provoked fine art and continue to do so.

Joseph Nechvatal wrote about his visit to the exhibition for Hyperallergenic, and reports that a piece by Raffaella della Olga called “Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard – constellation” from 2009 was his favorite. He says: “The artist very skillfully and painstakingly painted each letter of the great symbolist poem “Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard” (“A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance”) (1914) by Stéphane Mallarmé with white paint mixed with fluorescent powder. One sees it by entering a pitch-black room. Unnoticed to me, a young woman had slipped past me and installed herself behind the book that was now glowing in the dark. She began to magically turn pages. Then she revealed herself by speaking softly to me, gently explaining the poetic relationship of the glowing text with constellations of the night sky. It was a wonderful and sensual experience.”