The Bountiful Book

Oh. My.

Can you believe this? Yes, it really exists. And it's right here in Toronto!! How did I miss this? Well, probably because it's by the 401 highway, close to Pearson International Airport, not an area of the city that I frequent with any regularity. So what the heck is it? Well, it's part of a new public art exhibition, called Artstage.

The artist of this glorious monument (entitled The Book) is Ilan Sandler, and here's a little bit about his thoughts regarding his sculpture:

The Book is a steel sculpture with two pages torn away from its spine. The spine is perpendicular to the ground, the covers are open, and the pages appear to blow in the wind. From the highway viewers see a book that looks as if it were lifted by the wind and oriented towards a sheet that has already escaped its binding. Because the scale of the book is enlarged, the sculpture becomes anthropomorphized and appears to be performing a choreographed dance with the escaping page...Although most books tend to be read from front to back, The Book's gesture can be absorbed by viewers in an instant as they drive by the installation. However, viewers who have an opportunity to get closer to the site will recognize that the holes in the steel pages form clusters of words. The clustered texts link the letters of the Latin alphabet to its predecessors, which include the Phoenician alphabet that emerged from Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Phoenician letters that developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs were used to represent syllabic sounds of Semitic languages dating to approximately 2000 B.C. Carvings of a twenty-two character Phoenician alphabet from 1000 B.C. have been linked to earlier carvings from approximately 1750 B.C. (known as the Wadi el-Hol script) that have been inspired by particular Egyptian hieroglyphs...The steel book is a monument poised between eras in the evolution of thought.

I have got to go see this. This beauty will be around for three years, so I guess I've got time to find a way to get to see it. Anyone wanna drive me there? Heh.

Comments

[Carl V.]

That is so cool! I'd love to see that up close!

[Kate S.]

I just read about that sculpture in the Globe & Mail last weekend. I was plotting a post about it, but now I can just link to yours! I can't wait to see it close up myself. I don't have a car either, but if I did, I'd propose a Toronto book blogger field trip. It's fabulous in the photos, but imagine it in scale towering over you!

[patricia]

Great idea Kate. We really should try and do that! First we gotta find a book blogger with a car!

(I'd even bake chocolate chip cookies for the event...)

[donna]

Wow. That's cool!

[cipriano]

That is so incred!
Yes, I will drive you there, even.
Strictly platonic, of course. I will not even LOOK at your Table of Contents, on the way there!
I notice that you are reading a book that figured in to one of the short stories I just read in the new Alice Munro book.
Seven Gothic Tales. She has one of her characters present this book to another character, as a gift.
So....... what time should I pick you up then?

[patricia]

Heh... you bring the car, Cip, and I'll bring the cookies.

[kimbofo]

That's very cool. There was something similiar here in London last year, called The Writer. I took a bunch of photographs:

http://kimbofo.smugmug.com/gallery/744348

[iliana]

I love it! Reminded me of the big books sculpture I saw in Berlin this summer.

[patricia]

Oh Kim, I remember that sculpture! It's amazing! Thanks for sharing.

[Heather]

NEAT!!!! Where have I been?!

[Doc]

So very cool. I love it being a book - I can't imagine life without books, nor people who go through life without reading them.