The Martha Rosler Library
Exhibition April 12 to June 14 2008
Established in 2005, this unique collection of around 7,700 books first opened as a storefront reading room for the New York-based arts project e-flux.
Since then, it has travelled across Europe, opening in the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany, in Antwerp’s Muhka (Museum of Contemporary Art), the United Nations Plaza School in Berlin, and the Institut National de L’Histoire de L’Art in Paris.
The first UK exhibition of the Martha Rosler Library has been organised in collaboration with e-flux by Liverpool John Moores University’s Site Gallery in collaboration with the Liverpool Biennial.
Brooklyn-based Martha Rosler is one of America’s most important living artists. The Library is as eclectic as her art is varied – she works in video, sculpture, photo-text, installation, and performance. Rosler’s work is centred on everyday life and the public sphere, often with an eye to women’s experience. Recurrent concerns are the media and war as well as architecture and the built environment, from housing and homelessness to systems of transport. Rosler also writes on aspects of culture and is a respected teacher.
The Library’s titles range from political theory, art history and poetry to science fiction, mystery and children’s books; there are also periodicals, dictionaries, maps and travel books, as well as photo albums, posters, postcards and newspaper clippings. The contents are both a source of inspiration for Rosler’s work and an installation in their own right – with the live components being lectures, reading groups and discussions.
The Library will remain on view in Liverpool until 14 June when it will move to Edinburgh, opening to the public in August 2008.