This exhibition was conceived in close relation to Dave Hullfish Bailey’s recently published artist book, What’s Left (Sternberg Press, Berlin and Casco, Utrecht, 2009).

In response to the diverse research collected in the book, Bailey presented a series of photographic images that document the self-organized, open-air library of so-called Slab City, a squatters’ camp located on an abandoned military base in California’s southern desert.

Alongside these images he included selected pieces of new research, a text-based slide projection, and a collection of sculptural objects, some of which were created in situ out of materials discarded by local Berlin libraries.

Together, these elements proposed a chain of connections which are rooted in concrete details of location, yet are at the same time highly speculative. By linking these official and unofficial collections of books with each other and with the exhibition and publication site — the gallery is located adjacent to the former Karl Marx bookstore which was founded in the GDR and today is the office of Sternberg Press — Bailey frames questions about the social spaces of learning, and the possibly asocial reasons for reading.