Toute la memoire du monde - The World’s Knowledge BNF I
This seemingly straightforward image of the landmark Labrouste reading room of France’s national library presents an anomaly: the shelves are barren, bereft of books. Fischer and el Sani made the image in 2006 when the site was largely vacant. Part of a project that included other still images and a film, Toute la mémoire du monde (All the World’s Memory) commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Alain Resnais’ 1956 short documentary of the same name. Whereas Resnais depicted the library as a humming hive of intellectual activity, a fortress against forgetting, Fischer and el Sani portray the building as a victim of information overload. As hinted by their ironic subtitle (The World’s Knowledge), memory in the digital age has been sacrificed in the pursuit of increasingly immaterial knowledge, leaving a few bewildered readers to sit and wait.
Artwork Details
- Title: Toute la memoire du monde - The World’s Knowledge BNF I
- Artist: Nina Fischer (German, born 1965)
- Artist: Maroan el Sani (German, born 1966)
- Date: 2006
- Medium: Chromogenic print
- Dimensions: Overall: approx. 49” × 59” (124.5 cm × 149.9 cm)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of the Marron Family, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary, 2020
- Object Number: 2020.312.2
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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