Conceptually, I like the idea that I’m working with something that’s ‘dead’ and I’m bringing it back to life. “
In fact, he often repurposes items that might not otherwise find a second life. When Detmer lived in New York, he often obtained books from boxes where people kept them.
It will be left on the sidewalk for passers-by to take away until the garbage truck arrives. “I’ve rescued them from the dumpster a lot of times,” he said. He also hears from people who are moving or clearing out their deceased parents’ homes and need to clear out items such as old encyclopedias. “As far as encyclopedias go, I get a lot more this way,” he noted. Then there are garage and estate sales, resale shops and second-hand bookstores. Sometimes, if he needs a specific type of book to find the piece he wants, he will search on eBay.
“A lot of times I’ll buy books that look interesting and put them in my studio for months or even years before working with them, so I have an ever-changing library,” he says. “A lot of times I’ll use existing books, but sometimes I’ll look for something specifically, and sometimes I’ll find things online that way.”
Detmer’s process for making sculptures has remained largely unchanged over the past two decades. First seal the book with varnish. “After I seal the edge, I start carving it and removing layers and carving anything I find interesting,” Detmer said. “I’m not moving or adding anything to the actual book. It’s purely a subtraction, an excavation.”
Artistically, Detmer’s work has evolved since he first developed this sculptural style. In the early days, he usually composed a piece from a book. “In the last five to 10 years, the form of the work has gotten bigger,” he said. “I’ve been putting multiple books together to create large towers and large wall decorations.”
I won’t be moving or adding anything to the actual book. This is purely a subtraction, a dig. “
In 2021, Detmer and his family moved back from New York to Chicago, the artist and his wife’s hometown. “Being here in particular made me think about America, the idea of America, think about our history, and question what makes this country great,” he says, “but also knowing what needs to be deciphered and re-examined, and what stories need to be retold.” This is reflected in his use of American history books in his work, whether it’s images of European violence against Native Americans in the sculpture American Story in Pictures or the collage sculpture of presidential faces in his sculpture The Resident, both made in 2022.
“I don’t know if I’m really telling people how to feel through these pieces, but by sculpting a book with all the presidents’ faces and making this creature that looks surreal…people will look at it and some will be angry that I sculpted the president’s face, and some will be pissed that I carved the president’s face.
Put the president’s face in the work,” he said.
In another recent post, Detmer wrote a book called Civilization and Climate. He has always cared about climate and the environment. “This has always been my focus and interest both inside and outside of my artwork,” he said. By selecting words and images that remain within the sculpture’s exposed layers of pages, Detmer connects an antique book to the current climate crisis.
“I think by working with books, it’s a way to revisit old ideas and repurpose some of the things that need to change,” he explains. “But you can also see that a lot of these issues are not new, these issues and issues have been around for decades, maybe even longer.”
Detmer comments on his approach to recycling: “I’m physically recycling materials, and by recycling a book or reusing a book or repurposing a book, I’m also recycling the ideas and information within it,” he explains. How this information is recycled depends on what the artist discovers as he turns more pages. Detmer plans the shape and feel of a piece, but the details come to fruition as he creates the sculpture. “I might be browsing a book and think this is a great image that I hope I encounter while working, but, once I seal the book and start carving, I might completely forget what it is, or, by the time I encounter it, it might not work, or part of it might work,” he says. “It’s like reading itself, literally reading with a knife. I read a page or a layer at a time and I’m surprised by what’s there, so I can’t really control what I encounter other than choosing the right book in the first place. Of course, I can control how I react to it.”
… Anyone who has lost their .MP3 collection due to a computer crash or been unable to open a work file because of an incompatible format knows that digital formats do not have the kind of durability that physical formats offer. My job is to take that into account. “
Additionally, as Detmer continues to create, the images and text he uses in his work may change. “There’s a little push and pull, like a collage or a painting, and suddenly something new appears and offsets something else,” he said. “A lot of times I’ll sculpt an area, look through a few pages and find something interesting, but then something else happens and maybe half a day’s work gets erased or sculpted away.”
Detmer’s carvings reveal more than just images. Sometimes poetry emerges from the words he carves. “William Burroughs used to do that in writing. He would edit,” he points out. “In a way, it’s remixing something that already exists to create something new.”
In his work, image and text interact. Detmer points out that when he lectures, he points out how people use language to interpret the images they see and, instead, rely on the images in their heads when looking at language. “In a way, I think pieces of language are themselves images, because the reader or viewer creates the image in their mind, and the image does the opposite,” he said.
There is much to think about in Detmer’s work. It’s about the huge technological changes that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century and what was lost along the way. It’s about deconstructing history and reprocessing information. This also reflects how human memory works. “We only remember a small part of what actually happened, and I think when we tell people what happened, we fill in the rest to try to make up a story,” he said. “I like to break these stories down into smaller pieces that are easier to explain.”*
This article was first published in Issue 65 of “High Fructose”. Get a print version of the full issue here.
