Contact: Douglas Smith Deputy Library Director 510-981-6195
EXHIBIT EXTENDED UNTIL MARCH 31st!
CENTRAL LIBRARY ART INSTALLATION “Flights of Mind” By Vita Wells
Artist talk & reception: Sunday February 24th , @2pm
BERKELEY, CA – Berkeley-based artist Vita Wells has created a large installation of some two hundred altered books spanning three levels of the atrium of the Berkeley Public Library’s Central Branch, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck, downtown Berkeley. This exhibit will now be on display through March 31st, 2013. Vita Wells will discuss the art installation and her work during a FREE artist talk and on Sunday afternoon, February 24th at 2:00pm in the Central Library’s 3rd floor Community Meeting Room. Wells’ installation features many dozens of altered, sculpted books suspended and airborne, as if flying in a spectacular natural formation, throughout a large portion of the Central Library building. “This installation,” the artist says, “is about possibility and community across space and time, and it celebrates how public libraries enrich who we are as individuals and as a community.” Wells, who has created art objects since she was old enough to wield an x-acto knife, makes use of the medium of printed books as the raw material of her art, which is powerfully evident in Flights of Mind. In response to the frequent question, “Why books?” she says, “As physical objects, books are unlike any of the other material objects with which we surround ourselves in our day-to-day lives. They are singular in the power their mere physical presence possesses, the promise and possibility they embody.” Vita Wells lives and makes art in Berkeley. Flights of Mind was created for the Berkeley Public Library Foundation’s 11th annual Authors Dinner and will remain on display until March 31st. Information about the artist and her work can be found at http://www.vitawells.net/flightsBPL.html. Access to the exhibit is available during the library’s open hours: Monday 12 – 8; Tuesday 10- 8; Wednesday – Saturday, 10 – 6; Sunday 1 – 5. Wheelchair accessible. Sponsored by the Berkeley Public Library Foundation and the Berkeley Public Library. For more information, call (510) 981-6100 or connect www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org.
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