takt kunstprojektraum Berlin - artist residency Germany

Ruth Beale
The Pamphlet Library
13.09.-11.10.08

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Ruth Beale
The Pamphlet Library – A Work in Progress

Pamphlet [pam-flit] –noun
1. a complete publication of generally less than 80 pages stitched or stapled together and usually having a paper cover.
2. a short treatise or essay, generally a controversial tract, on some subject of contemporary interest: a political pamphlet.?[Origin: 1375–1425; late ME pamflet < AL panfletus, pamfletus, syncopated var. of Pamphiletus, dim. of ML Pamphilus, title of a 12th-century Latin comedy. See -et]

The watercolour paintings and library of pamphlets shown here are a work-in-progress: a punctuation in an ever-growing collection of polemic and apologia. Some are included for their appealing form and content, some for the charting of ‘progress’ as extolled on their pages.

The pamphlets are labeled with their Dewey Decimal classification - a British book catagorisation system developed by Melvil Dewey in 1876, now used internationally alongside the US-based Library of Congress Classification. The first number in the Dewey system signifies one of ten categories from Social Sciences (3) to Arts and Recreation (7) followed by further numbers denoting more and more detailed classification catagories.

This is a reference library - please feel free to sit and read the pamphlets.

Ruth Beale lives and works in London. She studied Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, and is now taking the MFA Art Practice at Goldsmiths. Current and upcoming projects include The Voyage of Nonsuch at doggerfisher, Edinburgh, 31 October – 1 November, part of a two-year collaborative research project with Karen Mirza beginning at ending at Whitstable Biennale; Clarion Epic with Karen Breneman, a four-day cycle ride from London to Liverpool in the spirit of the socialist Clarion Cycling Club for The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home; and the ongoing Miss B’s Salons, monthly discussion events that have included a ‘Salon of Salons’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in August.

www.ruthbeale.net