Art in General Presents The General Public Library, a library/reading room project organized by Art in General Designer in Residence Mylinh Nguyen, in conjunction with the upcoming launch of six 2009-2010 New Commissions publications designed by Nguyen during her residency.

Art in General’s Storefront Project Space gallery will be made into a reading room, which will be accessible as an online resource as well. To start the library, Nguyen invited designers, publishers, curators, artists, galleries, and musicians to contribute publications to the project that reflect the donor’s practice, methodology, inspiration, and interest. Visitors are encouraged to donate a favorite book to the library during the exhibition.

Nguyen approaches the idea of a library with a unique focus on participation and the formation of community. In contrast to a traditional reading room–which can only be accessed for the duration of the show—the online catalogue of the General Public Library allows each visitor to browse and curate their own library within an existing and continually growing catalogue, beyond the physical installation. Each donation, as it is made, will be logged into the library cataloging system. As libraries begin to form and overlap, each book becomes a link between the book donor and other participants in the library. Inversely, when viewing one book, it is possible to see the interests of other participants.

Throughout the course of the exhibition, as visitors create their own selection of favorite books, the library will filter all donations into a catalog of the top 200 most popular books. These books will be added to the General Public Library permanent collection after the duration of the project.

Contributing participants include Ooga Booga, Fillip, Printed Matter, Nieves, 2nd Cannons, Capricious, Hassla, Golden Age, Medium Rare, Gottlund Verlag, Art Metropol, Eastside Projects, Bedford Press, Stripe SF, New Jerseyy, Matt Keegan, Split Fountain, Stupendous, The Holster, Bart de Baets, Christian Brandt, Emmet Byrne, Robin Cameron, Dante Carlos, David Horvitz, Zak Kyes, Mark Owens & Alex Klein, Megan Plunkett/Kingsboro Press, Radim Pesko, Laurel Ptak, Peter Sutherland, Vance Wellenstein, and YOU.

General Public Library features furniture designed by ROLU (Rosenlof-Lucas), a Minneapolis-based landscape design group. The exhibition also features a limited edition Baggu book tote, designed by MN/VW.

Events In conjunction to the library/reading room, Nguyen will present a series of contributor programs that shed light on the relationship between design, discourse and visual art practices. Please visit www.artingeneral.org for more information about these events in September.