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Christina Mitrentse’s individual exhibition entitled “Add To My Library Vol. II” adds one more “volume” to her visual “library”. The exhibition’s main theme was the book and it was held in the Art Work Space art gallery in London throughout August and September.
The artist presented a series of large-scale graphite and colour pencil drawings created on paper with an innovative methodology that uses books as building blocks to create buildings in her own imaginary world which alludes to the real world – Stonehenge, New Tate, Emblem, Ruin I. Another aspect of her exhibition resembled the flow of bibliographical data of favourite authors and titles, selected by invited international contributors from the art world. “METABOOK” is the name of another section of her work which uses the book as an element of sculptural composition to create mazy libraries and other architectural patterns. The paradox in Mitrentse’s work, according to art critic Peter Sychin, lies in the fact that it speaks at the same time of the loss of knowledge and of the preservation of the culture of the book. At a moment when established institutions of learning are in crisis – in Britain at least – with universities simultaneously charging highly increased student fees whilst purporting to democratise access to education, Mitrentse focuses not so much on this ostensible cultural expansion as on notions of the alternative, the marginal and anti-institutional education.
The artist builds “libraries” with fictional book “proposals” by the audience. Thus, their content is determined by the imaginary users and not by those in power who would seek to constrict and contain the culture of the book.
