Libelli

The expression »liber« derives from the Latin word for book, namely, »liber«, (pl. »libelli«), which means something like »small book«. As we know, a book is comprised of paper and the letters or pictures which are printed onto it. During the 20th century, as an object, the book became a favored object among artists. Book objects belong to the sought after rarities of the art market and enjoy a legendary aura. Consider the role of the book in novels which have as their theme conspiracy, for example, »The Name of the Rose« by Umberto Eco (1982). Thus, the book has long-since been recognized as an artistic medium. Gerhild Rother has succeeded in elaborating a new variant of this medium by specifically focusing on the multiple attributes of the carrying medium of paper from which books are produced.

The material of which dreams are made which is called paper, originally from the Egyptian papyrus plant, had already been used in antiquity as the raw material for the production of paper. Thus, Gerhild Rother’s work could be described as a sort of archeology of paper and thus of the book. The medium paper is storage medium for all types of expression and information. As a tectonic medium of construction it is not so well-known, even though ideal, namely, being both light and stable. Books can lie, stand and hang, and occasionally also swim; thus, they are machines for the water, for the land as well as for the air.

Gerhild Rother makes paper objects from books, which are then folded into various sculptures. Through hundreds, sometimes thousands of folds a geometric object then emerges with a multiple play of lines formed from the folded characters of the content. Figures made from waste paper – not painted, not cut, and such that the concealed content may be rediscovered through »unfolding«. Over the last ten years, paper sculptures have been produced on the following themes: Metamorphoses (wood/paper), old media (the book) and new media (CD), unread/the concealed text, haning books/book towers.