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Image / READ/WRITE/THINK/DREAM: detail view of benches by Roy McMakin

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Title
READ/WRITE/THINK/DREAM: detail view of benches by Roy McMakin
Creator
Stuart Collection (San Diego, Calif.)
Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)
Baldessari, John (American conceptual artist, born 1931)
Contributor
McMakin, Roy (American installation artist and designer, born 1956)
Beebe, Mary Livingstone (American, born 1940)
Date Created and/or Issued
2001
Contributing Institution
UC San Diego, The UC San Diego Library
Collection
Stuart Collection Photographs
Rights Information
Under copyright
Constraint(s) on Use: This work is protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use of this work beyond that allowed by "fair use" requires written permission of the UC Regents. Responsibility for obtaining permissions and any use and distribution of this work rests exclusively with the user and not the UC San Diego Library. Inquiries can be made to the UC San Diego Library program having custody of the work.
Use: This work is available from the UC San Diego Library. This digital copy of the work is intended to support research, teaching, and private study.
Rights Holder and Contact
Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)
Description
Sculpture and Installations
Decorative Arts, Utilitarian Objects and Interior Design
Before his 1994 visit to UCSD, Baldessari had been thinking about Ghiberti’s fifteenth-century bronze doors in Florence which render Bible stories in high relief, teaching the moral lessons of the day. His work also involves lessons, but in the form of questions rather than answers: through surprising combinations of pictures he prods the viewer into open-ended puzzles. The most prominent doors at UCSD were at the entrance to the Geisel Library, a landmark building designed by the California architect William Pereira, with a 1992 expansion by Gunnar Birkerts. Baldessari decided first to transform the library doors and then to incorporate the entire lobby space, choosing students as his subject. The entrance to the Geisel Library is comprised of a wall of eight ten-foot high glass panels flanking two pairs of automatic sliding doors. Onto each of these panels the artist placed photographic images of UCSD students standing atop a row of shelved books. They become part of the architectural structure – like a Greek temple using the figures as columns, the books as their bases. The existing clear glass of the doors was replaced with glass in primary colors, perhaps suggesting primary sources of information. As the doors open and close, the colored panes cross over each other, visually mixing into new colors. Above the doors the words READ, WRITE, THINK and DREAM echo the exhortation Baldessari gave his students to remember that beyond the day-to-day grind comes the chance to contemplate the unexpected and envision new worlds.
UC San Diego Library, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0175 (https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/contact)
Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego; La Jolla, California, United States
Type
image
Format
Glass (material); computer-generated
Form/Genre
sculpture (visual work)
entrance halls
architecture (object genre)
Conceptual
benches (furniture)
site-specific works
furniture
lobbies
Identifier
ark:/20775/bb5052815q
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Contemporary
Humor
Education
Public spaces
Books
American
Students
University of California, San Diego--History
Sculpture (visual work)
Entrance halls
Architecture (object genre)
Conceptual
Benches (furniture)
Site-specific works
Furniture
Lobbies

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