(Re)used books

If you cherish the Gutenbergian development of the printed word, an art exhibit devoted to the thoughtful mutilation of books might be tough to stomach, even an exhibit as diverse and challenging as Altered States: Artists Re-imagine the Book, at Reed Whipple Cultural Center (821 Las Vegas Blvd. North, 229-1012) through Jan. 2.

Curated by L.A. artist Joseph Shuldiner, Altered States features 11 artists doing their best to take text into new and frightening places -- some of which are harmless fun, and others of which might be difficult for a bookworm to look at straight on. Consider Lisa Kokin's "Shroud," a vivid tapestry of ripped-from-the-book pulp Western covers from Larabie Stutter's The White Squaw or Charles N. Heckelmann's Hell in His Holsters, glued and threaded. Then there is Kokin's "Treatment," which severs spines from self-help guides (Eat to Succeed, How to Bowl), then weaves them into a curtain of endless advice titles, turning this lowliest genre on the great chain of literary being into a cutting commentary.

Other artists include Alexander Korzer-Robinson, who surgically cuts away everything but a dozen or so images in 19th-century encyclopedias, creating beautiful boxes full of colorful, diorama-like figures, animals and plants. The images appear in the exact same place as they would in an "untreated" book, and the cumulative effect is dazzling. Also wonderful to gaze at are works in Doug Beube's "Twister" series, involving parts of old phone books cut away so as to resemble birds caught off balance while flying into a wind storm. (On a recent visit, the gallery's air conditioning caused pages of these works to flutter quite elegantly.)

On the sillier side, Emily Sandor's "Page Poems" series takes a random page from any book and crosses out entire sentences, but leaves certain words highlighted, creating a kind of found (and nonsensical) poem similar to William Burroughs' cut-up technique. Even sillier, Alisa Banks glues artificial hair to old dictionaries and encyclopedias in her "Edges" series. JARRET KEENE