Berkeley artist Vita Wells‘s newly installed work, Flights of Mind, spans three levels of the atrium of Berkeley’s main Public Library, and it literally makes books fly.
The installation features some two hundred altered, sculpted books suspended and airborne, as if flying in a spectacular natural formation, throughout a large portion of library building. The work was created for — and much admired at — Saturday’s Berkeley Public Library Foundation Authors Dinner (which we reported on earlier today). And now it is open to the general public to view, for free, for the next two weeks, through Feb. 24.
Wells will discuss the art installation and her work during a free artist talk on Sunday Feb. 24 at 2:00pm in the Central Library’s 3rd floor Community Meeting Room.
In a release, Wells said the installation is about “possibility and community across space and time, and it celebrates how public libraries enrich who we are as individuals and as a community.”
In response to the frequent question, “Why books?” Wells said: “As physical objects, books are unlike any of the other material objects with which we surround ourselves in our day-to-day lives. They are singular in the power their mere physical presence possesses, the promise and possibility they embody.”
The Central Branch of the Berkeley Public Library is at 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck Ave. in downtown Berkeley. Access to the exhibit is available during the library’s open hours: Monday 12-8; Tuesday 10-8; Wednesday – Saturday, 10-6; Sunday 1-5. Wheelchair accessible. For more information about the artist and her work, visit Vita Wells’s website.
Kaia Diringer is currently Berkeleyside’s photo intern. See more of her work on Flickr.
Related:
Local stars come out for the Berkeley Public Library [02.11.13]
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