Books at the Guggenheim

In Case You Missed It...

Some books in a nook--a real nook--at the Guggenheim "library" and "reading room." These are tiny spaces toward the top of the incline helix of the main gallery. I went to a curiously fun exhibit a couple months back, which included several interesting culturally interesting characters and images in odd positions. The artist, Maurizio Cattelan, has both a morbid sense of humor, and an artist's eye for the shocking and bizarre. The NYTimes Review can be viewed online. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the library and reading room at the Guggenheim is how many people were actually using the small and somewhat hidden space. The role of the art book is really still quite significant, and as these books are fairly costly to produce, there is much to be considered for their present and future value--whether we speak of cost value or cultural value. But people still lined up, and filled the seats of the micro-library and reading room, while Cattelan's waxy pope, JFK, and Hitler hung precariously high from the upper beams of Wright's cinnabon architecture.