The pieces at first look just like abstract collages, but soon, fragments of meaning emerge. The shape of lips. A pattern of shadows. Finally, letters and words, but not enough of them to know exactly what they say, and certainly not enough to know where they’re from. The meaning and the source have been cut away, and they’re now out of reach. The viewer has to look to the accompanying labels to learn anything. It turns out the piece on the left is taken from Why We Can’t Wait, by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the one on the right is from The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. King’s book was banned in South Africa during apartheid. The Bluest Eye had been banned from schools and libraries in the past few years in over 20 states — including Connecticut.
The obfuscuation in the image, and the revelation in the labels next to them, gets at the point of“De-Circulated: An Interpretation of Banned Books,” a series of artworks by Karen Duncan Pape along with a selection of“our favorite suppressed volumes,” running now at the upstairs gallery of the Institute Library through Sept. 8.
