Bookshelf of the Week: ‘Libros IV’ by Manuel Valdés

May 13, 2009 by Rob
Filed under Bookshelf of the Week

A fleeting glance at this week’s featured Bookshelf of the Week and one would think that this shot taken by Dan Pick was of a fairly standard bookshelf crammed with books. Take a closer look though and it soon becomes apparent that all is not as it first seems.

Housed in the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art in Madrid (the same museum that houses one of my favourites – ‘Guernica‘ (1937) by Pablo Picasso), this is actually a sculptural art piece made entirely out of wood. Created by the Spanish artist and sculptor Manuel Valdés (also known as Manolo Valdés), Libros IV, to give the piece its correct title, is a glorious creation, and I love how the artist plays with the idea of returning books to their base material, while keeping their bookish form.

Valdés is probably more renowned for his iconic modern sculptural interpretations of Velázquez’s ‘Las Meninas’, examples of which can be found dotted across the urban landscapes of cities far and wide (even as far away as San Francisco). However in my mind ‘Libros IV’ is just as iconic, and it deserves its place as the focus of this week’s Bookshelf of the Week.

My thanks to Dan for graciously allowing me to use his picture and for providing me with extra detail, and to Carmen Fernández Aparicio at the Reina Sofia Museum for forwarding me the information identifying this work of art.