Martha Rosler Library — A used bookstore where nothing is for sale

Say what?

Here's what Roberta Smith wrote in the January 13 New York Times about this interesting space (above).

Further liberties are being taken with the gallery form at the Martha Rosler Library, a tiny storefront resembling a used bookstore, where nothing is for sale.

Crammed into creaky shelves are about 6,000 books owned by the artist eminence Martha Rosler - on art, architecture, science fiction, poetry, history and beyond - that form a kind of portrait of the artist's mind.

Anyone can come in, browse, read and even photocopy a few pages - free.

This functioning bibliographic tribute has been organized by the artists Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle, owners of e-Flux, a digital information service whose clients include about 400 art galleries and institutions worldwide.

Their first project in the space was a free video rental, 500 videotapes by 250 artists, that ran for six months.

Mr. Vidokle calls the library "a useful resource that doesn't have any commercial motivation" and cites as inspiration the former artist-run SoHo restaurant FOOD, an offshoot of 112 Greene Street, where diners paid what they could.

The Martha Rosler Library is at 53 Ludlow Street, near Grand Street, on New York's Lower East Side; 212-619-3356; through April 15.

********************

Why am I so taken by this library?

Because it's something that doesn't do what it seems like it's supposed to.

I like transgressive art, people, fashion, you name it.

If it's wrong then it's all right by me.

[via Roberta Smith and the New York Times]