“What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life” – Einstein, Albert. (1956) Out of My Later Years. Newyork: Philosophical Library. Chapter 2,Self Portrait., 2011

As part of a two-wo/man show, Bovinich borrowed the sculptural and gestural ideas of 46 books — either found edited by their previous owners or edited by herself. A pencil mark drawn through every line in Plato’s Republic, the ragged right margin of poems pressed onto a roll of scotch tape, pencil shaving’s found in the folds of Fahrenheit 451: the books became moments for the individual to experience the art at present, the history of the texts, and the sub-tiers of authorship.

Accompanying the individual books, Bovinich wrote the chapter entitled “Self Portrait” of Albert Einstein’s last publication, Out of My Later Years upon a white wall with chalk. To view the text, as faint as it was, the individual had to examine, embedding the gesture of self portraiture into the act of viewing.

Installation view at The Hills Aesthetic Center, Chicago IL 2011.

Photography by Zacharias Elias Abubeker.