Untitled (Books) | John Q.
For Untitled (Books), John Q created a running list of events and their associated dates that ring the upper register of the library. Texts and dates are drawn from inscriptions found in Elsewhere’s collection of books that point to the lives of the former book owners, as well as from memories of life events that took place at Elsewhere culled from staff and the contributing artists’ own lives.
The work is meant to change over time as significant life events take place in the museum and new memories are made. To facilitate this change, John Q left behind a new inscription in a book they found during their stay. In the appropriately titled, “The Q Document” they penned a contract for the work, which guides future iterations of the piece and the means of its display in Elsewhere and other institutional contexts. Untitled (Books) extends the aesthetic and political strategies of Félix GonzálezTorres, whose works frequently meshed narratives of cultural and institutional histories with individual memories.