Remainders: Novel, Sculpture, Film

Interested in notions of collection and consumption, Allen Ruppersberg reconsiders texts, songs, narratives, photographs, and memorabilia culled from American vernacular culture. Remainders: Novel, Sculpture, Film is an installation that mimics a publisher’s remainders display in a bookstore. The artist manipulated the presentation in provocative ways: inserting fictional titles and authors onto book covers; printing the back covers and inside jacket flaps of each book with the entire screenplay of a 1960s educational film that warns of the dangers of hallucinogenic drugs; and inserting into each book a series of full-page, black-and-white stills from the artist’s film archive. Installed in a museum setting, the texts become a sculptural work that is seen instead of read.