Bibliothek Babylon, 1997

The edition Bibliothek Babylon by Rosemarie Trockel combines image, material, and surface intervention to question systems of knowledge, gender, and representation. A woman – poised, self-possessed, and surrounded by towering bookshelves – meets the viewer's gaze from within a library, the so-called temple of rational order. Yet the work resists static meaning. The image, printed on transparent Mylar (in three color versions), becomes a semi-visible surface, open to layering and light, while the rows of punched holes across the bottom destabilize the print's integrity, referencing early computer punch cards, braille, or ventilation grids. The title evokes the mythic “Library of Babel” as well as Babylon – a site of both cultural excess and confusion – inviting reflections on the role of women in intellectual life and on the structures that control access to knowledge. With Bibliothek Babylon, Trockel merges conceptual rigor with tactile experimentation, crafting an edition that is as formally seductive as it is politically charged.