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Brian Dettmer takes ana­log media — old instruc­tional books, art books, sci­ence and engi­neer­ing books, his­tory books, comic books, med­ical texts, dic­tio­nar­ies, ency­clo­pe­dias, maps, cas­sette tapes — and with an X-Acto knife and hun­dreds of razor-sharp blades turns them into detailed and extrav­a­gantly lay­ered sculp­tural works.

At Colum­bia Col­lege in Chicago, Dettmer orig­i­nally focused on paint­ing.  But after grad­u­at­ing in 1997 he worked in graphic design and sig­nage.  Three years later he started tear­ing, cut­ting, frag­ment­ing and glu­ing books, the medium that has earned him an inter­na­tional reputation.

Dettmer’s work has been shown in Slove­nia, the Nether­lands, Spain, Eng­land, Canada, Ger­many, Mex­ico and through­out the United States, includ­ing solo shows in New York, Chicago, Miami, San Fran­cisco, Atlanta and Barcelona.  He has also been fea­tured in the CBS Evening News, The New York Times, The Guardian in the United King­dom, Wired, National Pub­lic Media and more.

An exhi­bi­tion of Dettmer’s work will open Oct. 20, 2012 and run through Jan. 5, 2913 at The Museum of Con­tem­po­rary Art of Geor­gia in Atlanta.

Men­tions:  Doug Beube, Tom Fried­man

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