Eek! The idea of essentially destroying an antique book – even just an undesirable and outdated textbook or school book – makes us cringe. However, some artists really have an eye for design in extremely unique ways. Take artist Brian Dettmer for example. Dettmer creates his works out art from the ruins of old, unwanted books like dictionaries, encyclopedias and textbooks, taking an exacto knife to the old pages and carving away.
“I think one of the reasons people are disturbed by destroying books, is because we think about books as living things,” the artist explains. “But they also have the potential to continue to grow and become new things.”
The pieces are intriguing and unique, in most cases it is difficult to even decipher what materials were used to create the works. Dettmer calls his artistic technique “remixing” – a play on how a DJ remixes music.
Visit Brian Dettmer’s website to see more of his antique book creations >
