ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — What is truth? Who do we trust? These are questions raised by an installation at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg.
“And it kind of examines where we are right now with our history,” said curator Stanton Thomas.
The Last Library IV: Written in Water is a wonky-angled, immersive look at an old-school library from contemporary artists Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson.
“And they’re very concerned with our perceptions of truth, particularly in the age where the printed word is no longer as reliable as it might be,” Thomas said.
Thomas says the piece emerges in a world of artificial intelligence, competing versions of the truth and redacted documents.
“It’s a really funny library, and it’s filled with fictive books and records and archives, all kinds of secret plans and reports that got misfiled,” Thomas said.
Books titles include “Fake Fake News, “Thinking Without Books,” and “Control with Misery and Vice.”
“And one of the things I love about this project is reading those book labels and those files. They are very funny, and they are very pointed,” said Thomas.
Your copies of the truth are officially filed.
The installation will be at the Museum of Fine Arts St Petersburg through July 12.
And coming Thursday, June 26, the museum is hosting a “guided writing, reflections and conversation” on the installation. That’s in partnership with “book and bottle” of St. Pete.