"But I suspect that the human species the only species-teeters at the verge of extinction, yet that the Library enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret-will endure"

"The Library of Babel"

Jorge Luis Borges, 1956

 

Taavi Teevet's exhibition simultaneously creates a view and an experience. The gallery becomes the farthest chamber of the library described in Borges' perhaps most famous novella, a hall where, in place of readers and librarians, reigns the steadfast randomness of time and the primordial chaos of the universe.

 

The model created in Borges' words becomes a tool, constructs a space, and unleashes a chain of possibilities. Taavi Teevet halts time and, through his work, offers the opportunity for a stroll into the heart of existence, into the space between eternity and ennui, where the unfolding of books —of stories and information— occurs not through a light and familiar gesture, but through a daring leap of imagination.

 

"The Library is "total"-perfect, complete, and whole-and that its bookshelves contain all possible combinations of the twenty-two orthographic symbols(...)."

 

The room reveals a state-of-being portrait from the library's farthest corners, along with works from the series "Devotion" in two streams:

1. Laser-cut Bibles and hymnals used as press moulds. The pressed sheet metal and the book form a new, independent whole.

2. Iron-cast Bibles and hymnals.

 

You stand before an infinite bookshelf, and

you have the opportunity to grab any book you wish.

You reach for one, guided by the cover, the thickness of the binding,

or the words written on the spine.

You turn the book right side up,

open it at a random page, and begin to read.

What do these lines speak of?