ESSAY / Bodies of Knowledge

In Elias Canetti’s novel, Auto-da-Fe, there’s a scene early on where the newly married bibliophile, Peter Kien, stands by his bed visualizing how it should look for Therese, his bride. He muses, " Suppose it were covered with a layer of beautiful books? Suppose it were covered all over with books so that it could not bee seen at all?" This man, whose life is entirely bound up with book collecting, blankets his nuptial bed with them, imagining a consummation stop their pages. To Kien’s dismay, Therese sweeps his chosen volumes from the bed with an "all-embracing stroke of her left arm."

Still, there should be something familiar in that image of a book-covered divan. Who among us has never been reminded, in the throes of actual love, of some literary passage describing the same, or similar passion? We take our memory of reading to bed with us, where it informs everything transacted between the sheets. The Library Series, Fawn Potash’s suite of photographs of stacked books, reminds me of Canetti’s story. Her precarious arrangements of old volumes have something of the auspiciousness of both book collection and lovemaking.

For the past fifteen years Potash has lived in a Civil War era schoolhouse in upstate New York. The schoolhouse came equipped with a library and many cartons of old books, an assortment of grade school printers, references, and readers, cloth bound in the ornate manner of the mid-nineteen century. It was not until 1995, however, that artist found eloquent use for her collection. During frenetic period in her personal and professional life, Potash began working in her studio late at night, piling up books in front of a black backdrop with the intention of photographing them as they collapsed. The piles were sturdier than she intended, however, refusing to fall without being pushed. Rather than being disappointed by the unexpected stability of her book stacks, Potash found herself admiring their structural intricacies.

Some of Potash’s arrangements are elegant in their simplicity, such as the spiraling stack of Twisted Pile of Books. Others aspire to baroque complexity, as in Small Pile of Books, where each and every volume is precipitously balanced against another. The obvious care with witch the books are arranged is reiterated in other aspects of these photographs.The old books, with their stained fore-edging and tattered bindings, are all well-handled by generations of past readers. Such visible human traces add a certain resonance to Potash’s formations.

It is easy to see the stacking and interleaving of her volumes as analogous to postures of embrace or conflict. The sepia-toned surfaces of the prints are also well-handled, as Potash rubs them with wad until they are imbued with soft luster. The photographs are sufficiently large (16 x 20 inches) that the artist’s touch of hand can be clearly seen in the subtle variations in their finish. Since she usually positions the books so that neither spines nor covers can be seen, the mundane subject matter of their texts is not a factor in our appreciation of Potash’s arrangements. If these volumes do not stand for all of bookishness, the antiquarian details of their construction conjure up an attitude of bibliophilic longing.

The animation and expressiveness of Potash’s photographs ally them more closely with group portraiture than still life. Indeed, her repertoire of forms suggests a rather acrobatic "shelf life" for her chosen volumes. The artist has written of this work that the stacked books are metaphors of the educational process, "building a foundation of knowledge and experience." But the sumptuousness of her images also speaks to the status of these subjects as bodies of knowledge.

Buzz Spector

In Elias Canetti’s novel, Auto-da-Fe, there’s a scene early on where the newly married bibliophile, Peter Kien, stands by his bed visualizing how it should look for Therese, his bride. He muses, " Suppose it were covered with a layer of beautiful books? Suppose it were covered all over with books so that it could not bee seen at all?" This man, whose life is entirely bound up with book collecting, blankets his nuptial bed with them, imagining a consummation stop their pages. To Kien’s dismay, Therese sweeps his chosen volumes from the bed with an "all-embracing stroke of her left arm."

Still, there should be something familiar in that image of a book-covered divan. Who among us has never been reminded, in the throes of actual love, of some literary passage describing the same, or similar passion? We take our memory of reading to bed with us, where it informs everything transacted between the sheets. The Library Series, Fawn Potash’s suite of photographs of stacked books, reminds me of Canetti’s story. Her precarious arrangements of old volumes have something of the auspiciousness of both book collection and lovemaking.

For the past fifteen years Potash has lived in a Civil War era schoolhouse in upstate New York. The schoolhouse came equipped with a library and many cartons of old books, an assortment of grade school printers, references, and readers, cloth bound in the ornate manner of the mid-nineteen century. It was not until 1995, however, that artist found eloquent use for her collection. During frenetic period in her personal and professional life, Potash began working in her studio late at night, piling up books in front of a black backdrop with the intention of photographing them as they collapsed. The piles were sturdier than she intended, however, refusing to fall without being pushed. Rather than being disappointed by the unexpected stability of her book stacks, Potash found herself admiring their structural intricacies.

Some of Potash’s arrangements are elegant in their simplicity, such as the spiraling stack of Twisted Pile of Books. Others aspire to baroque complexity, as in Small Pile of Books, where each and every volume is precipitously balanced against another. The obvious care with witch the books are arranged is reiterated in other aspects of these photographs.The old books, with their stained fore-edging and tattered bindings, are all well-handled by generations of past readers. Such visible human traces add a certain resonance to Potash’s formations.

It is easy to see the stacking and interleaving of her volumes as analogous to postures of embrace or conflict. The sepia-toned surfaces of the prints are also well-handled, as Potash rubs them with wad until they are imbued with soft luster. The photographs are sufficiently large (16 x 20 inches) that the artist’s touch of hand can be clearly seen in the subtle variations in their finish. Since she usually positions the books so that neither spines nor covers can be seen, the mundane subject matter of their texts is not a factor in our appreciation of Potash’s arrangements. If these volumes do not stand for all of bookishness, the antiquarian details of their construction conjure up an attitude of bibliophilic longing.

The animation and expressiveness of Potash’s photographs ally them more closely with group portraiture than still life. Indeed, her repertoire of forms suggests a rather acrobatic "shelf life" for her chosen volumes. The artist has written of this work that the stacked books are metaphors of the educational process, "building a foundation of knowledge and experience." But the sumptuousness of her images also speaks to the status of these subjects as bodies of knowledge.

Buzz Spector