“There is something in books which is absent: their origin, their destination, their effectiveness. The author, the past or future readers, the influences received or exerted, its updates and concretisations. The book is a potential form, it lacks deflagration. It is an upcoming explosion that is happening or has happened.”*

“The book: inside and out” reflects on the rawest and, simultaneously, affectionate sense of the book. It considers its structure beyond the physical object, directing it to relations, undefined on the naked eye, that it establishes throughout its path in this world.

This work is constituted by “Infinite Tasks: When Art and Book Unbind Each Other”, a text by Paulo Pires do Vale, promptly complemented with excerpts of the work of Bruno Munari, Fernando Pessoa, Mieke Gerritzen, and Christoph Keller. Form and materiality invoke a certain poetic sobriety corresponded in the textual content.

[translated from:]* Vale, Paulo Pires do (2012). Uma fenda abre-se diante de nós. (…). Tarefas Infinitas: Quando a Arte e o Livro se Ilimitam. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.