With The Skill of A Surgeon Brian Dettmer Reveals The Sculptures Hidden Inside Forgotten Books
Near the dawn of the twenty-first century, Brian Dettmer was primarily a painter. But one day he embarked on a series of works where he applied the torn pages of newspapers and books to his canvases. “I liked the idea that the information actually existed there on the canvas, even though it wasn’t really readable,” he recalls on a recent phone call. “It became more of a visual archive.” Those collaged canvases led to sculptures made from stacks of books, which he would carve in ways where the alterations were not obvious until the viewer came close to the piece. While making one such sculpture, Dettmer noticed a landscape inside a book, carved around it and peeled back more pages. As he did that, a new figure emerged. “That was my eureka moment when I realized that this was an exciting process,” says Dettmer. “At the time, and even more so now, it seemed to make sense.”
Twenty years later, Dettmer is best known for his elaborate book sculptures that have appeared in galleries, museums and universities across the United States. The Chicago-based artist spends his workday hours in a former transmission garage that he converted into an art studio. He’s made his studio as comfortable as his home—replete with heating and air conditioning—keeping the space clean enough to spend hours tending to the meticulously detailed work involved in making these pieces. Here, Dettmer carefully carves into books that he has sealed with varnish, removing bits of the pages to reveal illustrations and text that may become part of the final work.
Of course, there is plenty of source material inside this space too. Dettmer has twenty-four linear feet of shelves filled with the vintage reference and non-fiction books that he will, eventually, reimagine and reshape. The finished sculptures take on a variety of forms. They might look like a Jenga tower or the cogs of a machine or a framed 3-D collage. Meanwhile, the fragments of illustrations and text within these tomes that remain visible tell new stories, while prompting viewers to contemplate issues related to the subject matter of the source material, as well as the significance of the printed medium itself.
If I makebeautiful artwork that everybody loves, that no one is questioning and nobody has a problem with, then I’m probably not really pushing some issues.”
Back in the early ‘00s, as online media and culture grew in popularity, books became a way for Dettmer to reflect and comment on the dramatic shift in the distribution of information that was taking
place. “It seemed like a relevant material to work with and ponder, especially twenty years ago, but even now,” he explains.
Dettmer’s choice of material has both a conceptual and aesthetic function. “Conceptually, I like the idea that I’m working with something that has already ‘died’ and I’m bringing it back to life,” he says, “but as far as the actual books themselves, of course, reference books with nice illustrations work well.”
Crucially, reference books speak to some of the themes that permeate Dettmer’s body of work. Even before the advent of Wikipedia and endless news cycles, the content could—and often did—become antiquated relatively quickly. Once people had the option to look up the most up-to-date information at home, whether that was the definition of a word or a deep dive into a country’s recent history, they did. “People don’t use dictionaries and encyclopedias and books like that,” says Dettmer. “Those are the first to become endangered now that we get all of our information online, but the information itself is also outdated.”
He adds, “Not only the format, but the content is out-of-date, so the book doesn’t really function or work the way that it was originally designed.”
There’s a struggle between old and new media that comes to light in Dettmer’s work, particularly when he uses encyclopedias. As he explains, the internet offers the best means for finding current information. “But the book is the perfect format for stability,” he adds, “knowing that if you have a printed book and it just sits there—unless I get a hold of it—it’s not going to change for ten years, on hundred years, even two hundred years.” And, as anyone who has ever lost their .mp3 collection in a computer crash or couldn’t open a work file because of an incompatible format knows, digital doesn’t have that same kind of perceived permanence that physical formats offer. “My work contemplates that,” says Dettmer.
For some, the idea of carving up a book might be off-putting. In fact, Dettmer says that people have gotten upset with him for “destroying” books, but that reaction doesn’t particularly bother him. “If I make beautiful artwork that everybody loves, that no one is questioning and nobody has a problem with, then I’m probably not really pushing some issues,” he says.
Moreover, the books that Dettmer selects might be old, but they aren’t particularly rare and the completed pieces speak to a greater point. “I knew that I was putting enough time into the work and that I was working with books that were in the thousands, if not more so, of copies,” he explains, “so my work is sort of about loss and what’s happening as things become less tangible and less physical, as everything is online now. But I don’t necessarily want to participate in that loss myself.”
Conceptually, I like the idea that I’m working with something that has already’ died’ andI ’m bringing it back to life.”
In fact, he’s often repurposing items that may not have otherwise found a second life. When he lived in New York, Dettmer often sourced books from boxes that people
would leave on the sidewalk for passersby to take before the garbage trucks arrive. “I’m many times saving them from the dumpster,” he says. He also hears from people who are moving or cleaning out the homes of deceased parents and need to purge items like old encyclopedias. “As far encyclopedias go, I get more that way,” he notes. Then there are garage and estate sales, resale shops and used book stores. Sometimes, he’ll search eBay, if he needs a specific type of book for a piece that he has in mind.
“A lot of times, I’ll buy some books that look interesting and I’ll have them in my studio for a couple months—or even a few years—before I work with them, so I have a library that’s constantly changing,” he says. “A lot of times, I’ll work with the books I already have, but sometimes I’ll specifically seek something out and sometimes find things online that way.”
Dettmer’s process for making the sculptures has remained largely unchanged over the past twenty years. It begins with sealing the book up with varnish. “After I seal the edges is when I start to carve into it and remove layers and carve around whatever I find that is interesting,” says Dettmer. “I’m not moving or adding anything to the actual book. It’s purely just a subtractive method, an excavation.”
Artistically, Dettmer’s work has evolved since he first developed this style of sculpture. Early on, he typically made one piece out of one book. “Over the last five to ten years, the format of the pieces have become bigger,” he says. “I’ve been integrating multiple books together to create large towers and large wall pieces.”
I’m not moving or adding anything to the actual book. It’s purely just a subtractive method, an excavation.”
In 2021, Dettmer and his family moved from New York back to Chicago, the hometown of both the artist and his wife. “Moving back here, especially, has made me think about the U.S., think about the idea of America, think about our history and question what is great about the country,” he says, “but also what does need to be cracked opened and reexamined and what stories do need to be retold.” That’s reflected in his use of U.S. history books in his work, whether it’s the images of European violence against Native Americans that emerge in a carving of The Story of America in Pictures or the carved collage of presidential faces in his sculpture, “Residents”, both of which were made in 2022.
“I don’t know if I’m really telling people how to feel through the works, but, by carving through a book of all the president’s faces and making this surrealistic looking creature… people will look at it and some people will be offended that I carved through the presidents faces and some people will be offended by the fact that I’m
presenting the presidents’ faces within a work,” he says.
In another recent piece, Dettmer carves into a book called Civilization and Climate. Concerns about climate and the environment have been on his mind. “It’s always been a concern and an interest of mine inside and outside of my artwork,” he says. Through the selection of words and images that remain in the layers of exposed pages in this sculpture, Dettmer connects a vintage book to the current climate crisis.
“I think that, by working with books, it’s a way to reexamine ideas of the past and reappropriate some things that need to be shifted,” he explains. “But you can also see that a lot of these issues aren’t new and these are concerns and issues that we’ve had for decades now, if not longer.”
Dettmer’s comments on his approach to recycling: “I’m physically recycling the material and by recycling a book or reusing a book or repurposing a book, I’m also recycling the ideas and information inside,” he explains. How that information is recycled depends on what the artist uncovers as he peels back more pages. Dettmer plans the shape and feeling of a piece, but the details come to fruition as he works on the sculpture. “I might skim through a book and think that’s a great image, I hope I come across it when I’m working, but then, once I seal up the book and I’m carving through, I might completely forget about what it was or, when I do come across it, it might not work or part of it might work,” he says. “It’s like reading itself, literally reading with a knife. I’m going one page or one layer at a time and I’m surprised by what’s there, so I can’t really control what I come across other than picking the right book in the first place. Of course, I can control how I respond to it.”
…As anyone who has ever lost their .MP3 collection in a computer crash or couldn’t open a work file because of an incompatible format knows, digital doesn’t have that same kind of perceived permanence that physical formats offer. My work contemplates that.”
Moreover, the images and text that Dettmer uses in a piece can change while he continues to work on it. “There is a little bit of push and pull, the way you might have with a collage or a painting, where all of a sudden, something new emerges and it cancels out something else,” he says. “There are a lot of times where I’ll carve an area, go through several pages and find something that’s interesting, but then something else will happen and maybe half a day’s work gets removed or carved away.”
Dettmer’s carvings reveal more than images. Sometimes, poetry emerges from the text that he carves as well. “William Burroughs used to do that with his writing. He did cut ups,” he notes. “In a way, it is remixing something that already exists in order to create something new.”
In his work, the images and text play with each other. Dettmer notes that, when he gives lectures, he will point out how people use language to explain the images that they see and, conversely, rely on images in their minds when looking at language. “In a way, I think of the language fragments as images themselves just because the reader or the viewer creates images in their head and the images do the opposite,” he says.
There is a lot to contemplate in Dettmer’s work. It’s about the dramatic technological shift at the turn of the twenty-first century and what was lost in the process. It’s about deconstructing history and reprocessing information. It’s also a reflection on how human memory works. “We’re only remembering little fragments of what actually happened and I think that we fill in the rest to try and make a story when we tell people what happened,” he says. “I like the idea that I’m breaking these stories back down into smaller fragments, more open to interpretation.”*
This article first appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 65. Get the full issue in print here.
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