More invisible notes

I. Taking down the Invisible Library exhibit in London:



II. In L Magazine, Mark Asch chimes in on (among other things) invisible music in Ben Greenman's Please Step Back. He also offers this trip down memory lane:

When Park read at our fiction issue reading last July, he introduced his reading by reading "Borges and I", swapping in his own name for JLB's; I can only imagine the superhuman effort it took him to resist the impulse to spend all 1,200 words on Borges. Or, for that matter, to invent an imaginary book, and sneak it into his rundown of real books containing mentions of imaginary books. (I checked; all the books he mentions and describes really do exist. Disappointing.)

Londoners! Invisible Library to disappear soon...

Some nice pics of people scribbling in the Invisible Library are up at Londonist. And here's what the site has to say:

Sometimes we hear of an idea that's so brilliantly simple, we wonder why nobody's tried it before. And so it is with the Invisible Library exhibition at Tenderpixel on Cecil Court. The illustration collective INK have chosen 40 books that don't exist in the real world - only within the pages of other, real-world books - and brought them to life by illustrating their covers.

But it doesn't stop there. These books are unwritten, apart from the opening or closing pages, and you're invited to go in and add to their stories. The exhibition's already been running for several weeks so if your creative juices aren't running, you can always read what others have done (we recommend taking a look at Oolon Colluphid's "Who is This God Person, Anyway?", part of which has been filled in by someone who's clearly never read any Douglas Adams). Other fake works come from Roberto Bolano, John Wyndham and Vladimir Nabokov.

Invisible Library runs until 11 July at Tendepixel, 10 Cecil Court WC2N. Gallery open Tuesday-Saturday 10.30am-7pm. For more information, visit Tenderpixel or INK Illustration's websites.

Le Cool

Nestled between the old bookshops of Cecil Court is the Invisible Library. Its shelves are lined with books that don’t exist, but have appeared in other books. Rachel Gannon, Fumie Kamijo and Chloe Regan of the INK collective were inspired by The Invisible Library blog, and have taken works such as those of the prodigious Benno von Archimbaldi, from Roberto Bolano’s 2666, and made their imagined versions. They have asked real authors to begin writing some of the stories inside, and they invite the public to do the same: yes, you can take books from the shelves and scribble. ‘We do quite a lot of book illustration in our day-to-day work,’ Rachel told me at the opening, as visitors perched with pencils and scratched their heads for good opening lines. ‘So this felt like a natural progression.’

—Le Cool (London)

Visualizing the Invisible Library

Tenderpixel is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of the illustration collective INK. The collaborative Invisible Library project will transform the gallery space into an imaginary library filled with books that have been alluded to in novels, but have never actually existed...until now. INK will collaborate with the literary foundation Real Fits, taking up residency at the gallery for a month of unique events, workshops and talks.

Part aesthetic adventure and part Metafictional exercise, INK has chosen forty imaginary book titles from the Invisible Library Blogspot and illustrated their covers. Working with some of Real Fits best selling writers and novelists, as well as high profile cultural and musical figures, the opening or closing pages of these forty empty books with illustrated covers, will be penned in advance of the exhibition. The collaboration continues throughout the exhibition as gallery attendees and workshop participants are invited to temporarily 'sign out' these library books and carry on writing the developing narratives within. Thus by the close of the exhibition, the once blank pages of each book will be enlivened with imaginative poly-vocal stories.

INK and Real Fits will host a programme combining illustration, creative writing, reportage and music. The four-week schedule of workshops and events reaches out to a diverse age-range of individuals. They are invited into the heart of literary London and renowned Victorian bookshop thoroughfare, Cecil Court. The results of these collaborations and workshops will also be subsequently published and exhibited.
Special Events during the exhibition include:

Empty Gallery Interview with INK Illustration pre-exhibition: 9 June 6:30-9PM
Breaking News Launch (INK in Collaboration with Real Fits): 3 July 6-9PM
Pages in Plectrums: Curated by Kieran Leonard 8 July 6-9PM

INK Illustration is a London based collective founded by Chloe Regan, Rachel Gannon & Fumie Kamijo at the Royal College of Art. The group works individually as well as collaboratively on a wide range of commercial and personal projects including; curating, editorial work, retail, museum installations, craftwork and exhibitions.