Artist Ruth Beale has created “Bookbed”, a bed-sized book that is on display as part of an exhibition produced with Peckham Library in London.
At the adjacent public gallery Peckham Platform, the bright red “cover” topped with a striped mattress and white pages made of duvets is supposed to promote libraries as places where creativity happens.
“Libraries are one of the few meeting points between society and the individual, public and private,” the artist said in a statement. “They represent more than the sum of their parts because they offer us both practical services and the potential for educational and cultural development.”
According to a review of the piece by contemporary art magazine this is tomorrow, “The bed as book is a neat allusion to the pleasures of reading, and symbolic of our relationship to the library books that we borrow, how they leave public spaces and enter our private, domestic settings.”
Of course, Beale’s sculpture also serves a dual purpose. If you want to read something before drifting off to sleep, just look at your sheets.
“Bookbed” will be on display until Mar. 24.