Sculpture by MAKSYM MAZUR

Ex Libris, 2022, 25 In this series, textual language loses its primary communicative function through the process of concreting and becomes a material for a visual, abstract language. As a result, books once intended for reading are transformed into objects for contemplation. To realize this concept, I used randomly found and discarded books from a local library — books that had been decommissioned as waste paper. I am interested in the transformation of the book from a once primary carrier of knowledge into a rudiment — an object that has lost its cognitive function. Many of the texts contained in these editions are today outdated or unnecessary, and the books themselves have been removed from circulation. In the contemporary context, they cease to function as a source of information and acquire a new status — artifacts that visualize the loss of meaning. This shift inspired me to explore what can be seen as an “inflation” of values — a predictable variability. Thus, books containing unreadable, outdated, and often incomprehensible texts in the context of the modern world become fragments of the past — artifacts in which carriers of knowledge are fused with concrete and steel reinforcement.