Emilio Chapela
Seeking a temporal place in Berlin for his impossible library
The Kurt F. Gödel Bibliothek, the latest project of the renowned Mexican emergent artist Emilio Chapela, consists of more than 2,000 books made of wood forming a library that won't be written and can't be read. The Bibliothek will be made entirely at Objeklabor in the heart of Kreuzberg in Berlin. The first 500 books are being manufactured during August, followed by many more, until its completion in the end of the year.
The titles of each issue will be inspired by concepts that can hardly be contained in a traditional book: it’s a library with impossible or absurd copies. For the title of books, Chapela is inviting artists, scientists, writers, musicians and other specialists to nominate books from their profession and experience. The result is a library that reflects the difficulty and impossibility of human knowledge contained and limited. The project's name pays homage to the German mathematician Kurt Gödel, who through demonstrations of basic logic, proves that the theories of human knowledge (particularly mathematics) are destined to remain incomplete. In the same way, Die Bibliothek K.Gödel fails to grasp the concepts and procedures of human knowledge that is beyond us. The library is a tribute to the unattainable, to the absolute and the impossible.
"How to write a book entitled 'Truth,' 'Beauty' or 'Nothingness?' Chapela asks. "The failure originates from the difficulty of writing a book about a highly abstract or universal concept, a contradiction suggested by the title itself. Each of the books in the library is 'impossible' in conceptual terms, but physically it is, being of wood, they have a physical presence, but can´t be opened.
Some examples of the titles are: Forgotten books, The Last Dictionary, Observing without Affecting, Predicción climatic (Climatic Predictions) Religious freedom in Spain in Aragon (La libertad de culto en la España de Aragón), Imparcialidad de los Juicios (Fair trial), Orografía del Edén (Topography of Eden).
The result is a library that reflects the difficulty and impossibility of human knowledge to be contained. The books will be classified in the traditional way but none have authorship. The two thousand independent titles will be painted and detailed in the spine and cover, imitating everything a traditional book. The library also questions the usefulness of the book in the world today: one hand holding its ability to stay and transcend, but also criticizes the inability to change and adapt. Especially when compared with the dynamism of today's media like the Internet.
During the production process, the Kurt Gödel Bibliothek needs a place to be shown and stored temporarily here in Berlin. Any ideas would be of great help.
