Special art tour Feb. 4 for Libraries employees

Mark your calendar: 2-3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 4, is reserved for a special tour and meet-the-artist event for University Libraries employees at the Borland Project Space, Borland Building, University Park. Visiting artist Katrin Hornek will be on hand to discuss “Visible (Plastic) Entanglements: A Working Exhibition,” her sculpture installment including more than 2,000 University Libraries books with “plastic” in the title.

Several Libraries faculty and staff have been involved in coordinating “The Great Book Move,” a performative event to be held 11 a.m.-1 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 2, where the public is invited to help transport more than 1,000 books for the installation from Pattee Library and University Park branch libraries to the Borland Project Space. Participants will not be required to check out books under personal accounts but are asked to RSVP at hmd17@psu.edu.

Hornek’s residency and installation, Jan. 25 through Feb. 11, highlight the multidisciplinary potential of “entangled research.” Originally educated as a sculptor, Hornek, of Vienna, Austria, is interested in looking at shaping forces and casting molds causing social, geological and abstract environments to materialize in forms. Her work in installation, video and photography stages a dialogue between the industrial and digital revolution, often discussing tension fields between growth and construction, control and an uncertainty, geo-engineering and climate change. Hornek’s work at Penn State is building upon her previous book project, “Title Word on Plastic*s,” which was composed of all the title pages of books on plastic in the Los Angeles Central Public Library (2013).

Books have been recalled from multiple campus locations for the installation. In addition to “The Great Book Move,” the Libraries’ receiving room will be delivering approximately 1,000 books Feb. 1-2 from annex locations directly to the Borland Project Space, where security will oversee the book sculpture.