Fuck Yeah, Book Arts!

betzine:

This is from the British Museum’s Facebook page:

This morning, the ‘Robben Island Bible’, one of the objects in our upcoming exhibition Shakespeare: staging the world, was installed in the exhibition space.  The Robben Island Bible is a copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare that was kept in secret in the Robben Island jail near Cape Town during Apartheid in the 1970s. Prisoners marked their favorite passage or play including Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned on the island for 18 years.  

Mandela chose a passage from Julius Caesar; his signature dated 16 December 1977. In Africa, the play Julius Caesar had long been a symbol for rebellion against imperial rule. The prisoners used the book as a tool for learning, debate and inspiration.  

The book was kept by political prisoner Sonny Venkatrathnam, and its cover was disguised with Diwali cards to prevent its seizure by prison authorities. It is a testament to the continuing importance and relevance of Shakespeare and his plays through time and across the globe and how, 400 years after they were first written, these plays and poems still have the power to speak to the world.

Diccionario Gráfico de la Fama Anónima  (Visual Dictionary of Anonymous Fame) by Enmarañada

Un libro olvidado cobra relevancia por la transgresión sufrida en forma de una provocativa intervención artística que respeta la esencia del mismo clasificando texturas, rasgados, mujeres y letras dentro del mismo diccionario en un afán humano de supervivencia y expresión que pretende gritar “ESTOY AQUI”

“Diccionario Gráfico de la Fama Anónima” pretende mostrar al arte como resultado del tiempo en un espacio de cultura transgredida y fama anónima donde la casualidad de la tendencia al caos y el ser de lo que no debiera ser, se funden en un pequeño torbellino de sorpresa, violación, expresión y olvido dando escaparate a paredes agrietadas, postes perforados,  pinturas descarapeladas, carteles rasgados, graffitis anónimos y calcomanías de culto, que bajo una intervención y expresión fotográfica libre pretende testimoniar la creación del tiempo, la lluvia, el polvo, el dolor, el coraje y la existencia sin intención ni juicio, tomando al hombre y su necesidad de expresión y vida como un mero vehículo para la definición indefinida.

(via earnestly)