You can relax – The End of Books is not a Doomsday scenario, but a book about bookends. Between 2019 and 2022 the authors, Alberto Vieceli and Sebastian Cremers, collected more than 2000 images of bookends. Observing them on this scale poses a number of interesting questions.
The diversity of books calls for a certain order. As a rule we put them on a shelf, where their placement follows a certain organisational pattern. So how do we go about it? Do we arrange according to content? By appearance? Or do we leave the 'order' to chance? All books have certain characteristics and their diversity requires a certain arrangement to bring order. But how we order things also reflects our way of thinking, our creativity and, for many people, this extends to presentation. Like books, bookends have a character of their own, and for a certain collector these objects also enter into a dialogue with the books they support. The collection of bookends in The End of Books reflect not only the versatility through which these objects begin to take on a life of their own in our homes but also the diversity and obsessions of their users who, the authors argue, may be read as the beginnings of a new social order.
Everyedition, 388pp, 24cm x 33cm, hardcover, 2022