Bookcases are a great ice breaker for those who love to read.
What relief those shelves offer ill-at ease partygoers… even when you don’t know a soul in the room, there’s always a chance you’ll bond with a fellow guest over one of your hosts’ titles.
Occupy yourself with a good browse whilst waiting for someone to take the bait.
Now, with the aid of Dutch street artists Jan Is De Man and Deef Feed, some residents of Utrecht have turned their bookcases into street art, sparking conversation in their culturally diverse neighborhood.
De Man, whose close friends occupy the ground floor of a building on the corner of Mimosastraat and Amsterdam, had initially planned to render a giant smiley face on an exterior wall as a public morale booster, but the shape of the three-story structure suggested something a bit more literary.
The trompe-l’oeil Boekenkast (or bookcase) took a week to create, and features titles in eight different languages.
Look closely and you’ll notice both artists’ names (and a smiley face) lurking among the spines.
Design mags may make an impression by ordering books according to size and color, but this communal 2-D boekenkast looks to belong to an avid and omnivorous reader.
Some English titles that caught our eye:
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Keith Richards’ autobiography Life
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
And a classy-looking hardbound Playboy collection that may or may not exist in real life.
(Readers, can you spot the other fakes?)
Boekenkast is the latest of a number of global bookshelf murals tempting literary pilgrims to take a selfie on the way to the local indie bookshop.
via Bored Panda
Related Content:
Japanese Artist Creates Bookshelf Dioramas That Magically Transport You Into Tokyo’s Back Alleys
157 Animated Minimalist Mid-Century Book Covers
David Bowie Songs Reimagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers: Space Oddity, Heroes, Life on Mars & More
Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, theater maker and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Join her in New York City this May for the next installment of her book-based variety show, Necromancers of the Public Domain. Follow her @AyunHalliday.
Please unsubscribe me.