Brian Dettmer- Excavator of Books and Molder of Plastics

Introduction

"Brian Dettmer cuts up books, Carefully slicing away big parts of the pages and covers, he leaves the binding intact and an image or key words on each page. Displayed behind glass in wood-en cases, the layered leaves resemble archaeological strata. Usually he chooses old, unused books. "How often do you use an old atlas compared to the Internet?" he asks. "Nobody's going to learn from a 1940s eye-surgery book." In many of the pieces at Aron Packer, the forms he's chosen highlight the book's content, causing the viewer to reflect on the subject in a new way. The Way Things Work, made from a book of the same title, interweaves machines and gears from various pages into one huge mechanism, with only some of the parts visible. Eye Surgery combines eyes, diagrams of optic nerves, and surgical instruments."

Fred Camper in the Chicago Reader
(full article by following the first link)