An urge to grab Benjamin Tippin’s castings of books, pry them open and soak in their stories is wiped away once a closer look reveals that they are stone replications of what they once were.
Tippin, a sculpture major at Cal State Long Beach, sacrifices his personal book collection for the sake of art by submerging them into silicone and casting new versions of novels, robbing them of their original intent. He focused his final project around the idea of the meme, or the transferring of cultural content to new mediums.
Tippin’s exhibition, entitled “Ex Libris,” currently on display in the Dutzi Gallery, consists of castings of various objects including vinyl records, skulls and encyclopedias that used to sit in his own collection. He used hydro-stone, a mixture of plaster and cement, for each casting.
“A lot of books were destroyed,” he said. “It’s kind of a release process. I’ll probably end up buying new copies.”
The sculptures still have remnants of the original prints, and hold on to torn pieces of book covers and ripped corners of paper.
“They were all transferred,” Tippin said. “The mold grips [the book] and resists the creation of the mold.”
The idea of translating information from one medium to another drove Tippin to fill the gallery with impressions of objects.
“It’s the translation from book to movie, from language to language… from page to brain,” he said. “It’s the idea of creating images through the translation of objects.”
Walking into the gallery feels like entering an old library or bookshop. However, the books that line the shelves are made of transparent resin or stone.
The gallery touches on the recent translation of analogue products to a digital format, which detaches the physical object from its original impact. According to Tippin, the digital translation of information physically distorts the novels, records and tapes.
Tippin was drawn into sculpture eight years ago, leading him to declare art as his major. He enjoys the freedom that comes from working with real objects.
“It’s not just the idea of an object in real space,” Tippin said. “All other forms of art can be included in sculpture.”
Photograms accompany the transparent resin castings of books. The photograms were made from darkroom exposures of the transparent castings, which hold some of the ripped pages of his books.
“I like the fact that he took one theme and uses so many mediums,” said Kathy Pitchman, Long Beach resident. “It is visually so attractive.”
When not working on castings, Tippin writes scholarly essays about the theories behind contemporary art. He plans to get his masters in art history to obtain a broader knowledge of the contemporary art period.
The exhibition will run until today at 5 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from noon to 5 p.m.; and Wednesday from noon to 7 p.m.
