Mickey Smith has spent decades engaged with libraries, exploring stacks, following books and bound volumes from the shelves through their deaccession and, in some instances, destruction.
She’s done so with cameras, the books and periodicals themselves, microfilm and a shredder to create “Morphologies,” a thought-provoking conceptual art exhibition that not only examines the functioning of libraries but the technological and cultural changes that have dramatically impacted the distribution and storage for books and periodicals and their content.
Organized by Macalester College’s Nan Warshaw Gallery, the exhibition is split between the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery in UNL’s Richards Hall and at Fiendish Plots, the west Lincoln space dedicated to bringing the work of mid-career contemporary artists to the city.
Smith, who calls herself a “documentary photographer with a conceptual bent” begins “Morphologies” chronically with “Bound,” a wall-sized photograph of 17th and 18th century volumes chained onto their shelves, so they can be removed from the library.
The morphologies close, in a conceptual sense, with a striking portrait of the orange bound volumes of “Artificial Intelligence.”
In between, Smith documents the life of books and bound publications that have found their way onto library shelves only to be removed and sent to storage, if not destruction or supplanted by digital versions.
The former is illustrated by “Platform” — more than 1,000 books set for disposal by UNL’s Love Library that were reclaimed for the exhibition and arranged into tight rows on the gallery floor to create a walkable surface.
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The destruction is vividly conveyed by “Stack,” the primary piece on view at Fiendish Plots. Three steel library shelves extend along the gallery wall, each covered with shredded pages from 98 years of National Geographic magazines that spill out into a three-foot-high pile on the floor.
Selecting National Geographic for shredding was no accident. Smith chose the venerable nature and culture magazine for its ubiquitousness and their preservation by millions of households, only to have to deal with them decades later.
And, in a piece added for the Lincoln version of “Morphologies,” rare color microfilm of two 1985 issues of National Geographic scroll across a pair of scrims in an Eisentrager-Howard space, displaying what was lost with the shredding — the juxtaposition of advertising and articles, the “I want to read that,” discovery of flipping through a magazine and, by its absence, the engagement with the physical objects.
For a writer whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines and books, “Morphologies” is a direct hit, forcing a contemplative response to the changes from printed object to electronic representation and the resultant alteration in content, the “dumbing down” and devaluation of writing itself.
And, by examining the past and the rapid technologically-driven changes of the present, the brilliantly conceived, insightful “Morphologies” raises questions about libraries of the future, what will be preserved for physical collection and how the library culture and services will continue to change, for better or worse.
“Morphologies” which will travel to New Zealand after its Lincoln showing, will return to the U.S. next year when it will be exhibited at the Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum in Clarinda, Iowa. There, Smith, a Minnesotan who now lives in New Zealand, said, the exhibition’s section of 2010s photographs of “Carnegie Libraries of the South Pacific” will be expanded.
The Eisentrager-Howard Gallery is on the first floor of the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s Richard Hall — across the street south of Memorial Stadium — and is open from noon to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday. Fiendish Plots, at 2130 Magnum Circle, is open from 1-4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, or by appointment arranged through fiendishplots.com.
“Morphologies” will be on view at the galleries through Sept. 26.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com. On Twitter @KentWolgamott
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L. Kent Wolgamott
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