Hello!

Résumé du livre

Conceived as part artist's book and part catalogue, Hello! was published on the occasion of Simon Dybbroe Møller's exhibition of the same name, held at the Fondazione Giuliani for contemporary art in Rome between October and January 2011/12. The book has all the characteristics of a documentary catalogue of the exhibition, but is, in concept, a collector's item. Transposing the show's principle themes - namely, the ironic paroxysm of the uselessness and non-functionality of the artistic process - to the two-dimensionality of the printed volume, Simon Dybbroe Møller has inserted 280 blank pages into the body of the book so as to give it the weight of a MacBook Air, the instrument used by the artist throughout his research process. Alongside the critical text by Chris Sharp and the illustrated pages, the volume and consistency of the book constitute the dominant characteristics of this publication, which thus acquires an almost sculptural valence. In partially detracting from the object's natural function, Simon Dybbroe Møller grants it an ambiguous semantic value, ironically redrawing and subverting its practical utility.