Heart, 2011

Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto

On her website Cara Barer describes the inspiration that led to her art practice: “A random encounter on Drew Street with a Houston Yellow Pages was the primary inspiration for me. After that chance meeting, I began to search for more books, and more ways to recreate them.” Interestingly Barer examines the size of the book, its contents and type of paper before she begins to work on it. These three elements help her in the transformation from book to art object to photograph. She continues, “This transformation and photographic documentation led to thoughts of obsolescence and the relevance of libraries in this century.” Heart is a striking image of a book transformed into a sculptural object. Characteristic of her sculptural handling the artist has bent, crumpled, and folded this book into the shape of a heart. Set against a black background within the deep red, we see some lines of text appear in the middle, acting almost like the veins of a beating heart. Proceeds from the sale of this lot to benefit Casey House, Ontario’s HIV/AIDS hospital.