Book Sculptor or Book Surgeon?

Book Sculptor or Book Surgeon?: "

If you thought Jonathan Safran Foer liked to cut up books, then prepare to be delighted by the work of Chicago-based artist Brian Dettmer, who crafts old encyclopedias, medical journals, and dictionaries into completely original sculptures. But according to Dettmer's website, he only manipulates the books, never adding new elements.

I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories. My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.

More photos of Dettmer's work after the jump.










Via My Modern Metropolis