She had remarkable eyes. Clear powder blue with a touch of melancholy. They were not quite innocent yet not piercingly knowing or wise. 
To the public, Diana Princess of Wales, was a princess of the fairy tale variety, the object of every projection, male and female alike. In private she was a tortured soul struggling with many demons. Her public life was a constant round of duty and paparazzi. 
She became the spokeswoman for the movement to ban landmines. There is a classic photo of her with a black African child whose one leg had been blown off by a leftover land mine. Hounded and abused by the press and the royal family, it seemed only a matter of time before she would be driven to self-destruction. 
Despite her privileged social status one could not help but feel a certain empathy for her. But she was different. 
 
Materials: book, mirrors, viewer, found objects, penlight. 
Book dimensions: 22.5 x 14.4 x 6.25cm / 9 x 5.75 x 2.5in 
Full installation: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in 
 
1997

Ex Libris: Di's Eyes: The Rich are Different

Ex Libris: The Illustrated Home Library Encyclopaedia

Ex Libris: History of Painting Vol. II

Materials: book (Statuts de Québec 1950-1951), mirrors, judas, found objects, plywood, stain, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 24.5 x 20 x 4.5cm / 9.75 x 8 x 1.75in 
Full Installation: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in 
 
2000

Ex Libris: Statuts de Quebec

Ex Libris: An Intimate Immensity

La Vida, by Oscar Lewis, is a study of Puerto Rican poverty in San Juan, Puerto Rico and New York. The sub-title, a chapter heading in the book, refers to the move a family makes, at the urging of a social worker, from a slum dwelling to a housing project, the caserío in Villa Hermosa. The mother talks about how much worse it is for her in the caserío. Housing projects the world over are notorious for being incubators of social unrest, ongoing poverty and crime. A trap, a prison, a dead end. Dios mio! Get me out of here! 
 
Materials: book (La Vida, Oscar Lewis), mirror, padlocks, judas, plastic lens, found objects, plywood, stain, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 5.6 x 23.75 x 15.6cm / 9.5 x 6.25 x 2.25in 
Full installation: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in

Ex Libris: La-Vida, Cruz Moves to a Housing Project

Materials: Book (Biochimie, Lehninger), found objects, mirror, judas, acrylic sheet, plywood, stain, brass hardware, ground glass, lamp 
 
Book Dimensions: 20 x 13 x 4.3cm / 8 x 5 x 2in 
Full Dimensions: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x12in 
 
2002

Ex Libris: Lehninger-Biochimie

Materials: book (Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 12 Hydroz to Jerem), mirrors, judas, found objects, plywood, stain, acrylic sheet, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 28 x 4 x 21.5cm / 11 x 8.5 x 1.5in 
 
Full Dimensions: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in 
 
2003

Ex Libris: Jeremiah

Materials: book (Engineering News 1920), found objects, mirror, judas, ground glass, plywood, stain, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 30 x 24 x 4.5cm / 12 x 9.5 x 1.75in 
Full installation: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in 
 
2005

Ex Libris: Engineering News 1920

"The Aleph?" I echoed. 
"Yes, the place where all the places of the world meet without mingling, beheld from every possible angle at once…." I tried to make sense of it. 
"But isn't the cellar very dark?" 
"Truth never penetrates an unwilling mind. If all the places of the earth are in the Aleph, then all sources of illumination, all lamps, all veins of light are there." 
"I shall go and look at once." 
(J.L. Borges, El Aleph, quoted in Millennium) 
 
Materials: book (Millennium, Filipe Fernandez-Arnesto, 1996), mirrors, frosted glass, judas, found objects, photos, plywood, stain, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 24 x 16 x 6cm / 9.5 x 6 x 2in 
Full Dimensions: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in 
 
2006

Ex Libris: Millenium: El Aleph

“Those U.F.O.s that either cure or kill us“ 
 
(for my mother who loved this work like no other) 
Materials: book (U.F.O.s & Extra-terrestrials), mirrors, judas, found objects, plywood, stain, acrylic sheet, brass hardware, lamp. 
Book Dimensions: 17.5 x 11.5 x 10cm / 7 x 4.5 x 4in 
Full Installation Dimensions: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in

U.F.O.S & EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS: THE OTHER

Materials: book (Canadian Immigration and Refugee Law Practice, Waldman, 2005), mirror, judas, found objects, ground glass, plywood, stain, acrylic sheet, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 
23 x 15.6 x 5.6cm / 9 x 6 x 2in 
Full Installation Dimensions: 
120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in

EX LIBRIS: EXILE

Jaqueline Susann’s novel, published in 1966, was a runaway bestseller in its day although panned by the usual intellectual snobs of the time. The ‘dolls’, of course, are pills - Reds, Greens and Yellows - used and abused in the climb to the top in the fashion biz. By 1974 it had sold 17 million copies and was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the best selling novel in publishing history. At present, 2019, it has sold more than 30 million copies world wide. 
 
Materials: book (Valley of the Dolls, Jaqueline Susann), mirror, judas, found objects, ground glass, plywood, stain, acrylic sheet, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 17.5 x 11.5 x 10cm / 7 x 4.5 x 4in 
 
Full Dimensions: 120 x 75 x 30cm / 48 x 30 x 12in

Ex Libris: Valley of the Dolls

"Les Rouges et Les Bleus" 
 
To this day and virtually from its beginnings Quebec’s politics and culture have been divided between the more radical nationalists - Les Rouges and the more conservative federalists - Les Bleues. Social and legal struggles over language, religion, and ‘le Patrimoine’ continue to wrack the province. 
 
Materials: book (Les Statuts Refondus de la Province du Quebec, 1909), found objects, ground glass, mirror, judas, brass hardware, plywood, stain, lamp 
 
Book dimensions: 10 x 7 x 2in / 25 x 17.5 x 5cm 
Full installation: 48 x 30 x 12 / 120 x 75 x 30cm

EX LIBRIS: STATUTS REFONDUS DU QUEBEC 1909

11. ָָָAnd it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord will once again show His hand, to acquire the remnant of His people, who will have remained, from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. 
 
12. He will raise a banner for the nations, and assemble the castaways of Israel; and He will gather in the dispersed ones of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” 
 
Isaiah 11:11, 12 
___________ 
 
Materials: book (History of the Jews Vol II, Graetz) found objects, images, judas, ground glass, acrylic sheet, plywood, stain, brass hardware, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 22.5 x 16.25 x 6.25cm / 9 x 6.5 x 2.5in 
Full Dimensions: 120 x 60 x 30cm/ 48 x 24 x 12in 
 
2015

EX LIBRIS: GRAETZ, HISTORY OF THE JEWS: ZION - ציון

Materials: book, found objects, ground glass, mirror, viewer, brass hardware, plywood, lamp 
 
Book dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 2.5 in / 22.5 x 16.25 x 6.25cm 
Full installation Dimensions: 48 x 30 x 12 / 120 x 75 x 30cm

EX LIBRIS: LA DIVINA COMMEDIA

Materials: book (History of Painting, 1898) found objects, images, ground glass, judas, plywood, brass hardware, stain, acrylic sheet, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 10 x 7.5 x 2in / 25 x 18.75 x 2cm 
Full Installation Dimensions: 48 x 30 x 12in / 120 x 75 x 30cm

EX LIBRIS: HISTORY OF PAINTING VOL. 1 (1898)

Materials: book (History of Painting, 1898) found objects, images, ground glass, judas, plywood, brass hardware, stain, acrylic sheet, lamp. 
 
Book Dimensions: 10 x 7.5 x 2in / 25 x 18.75 x 2cm 
Full InstallationDimensions : 48 x 30 x 12in / 120 x 75 x 30cm

EX LIBRIS: HISTORY OF PAINTING VOL. II (1898)

The images on exhibit here are photo documents of a series of installations inside old books. In these works, the original text has been removed and preserved under 
Plexiglas. Each book then becomes a container and the remaining text becomes the context for a visual daydream of found objects and images. The interiors, which you 
see here, are viewed through a judas in the spine of the book. 

The title of the series, an intimate immensity, derives from a phrase used by Gaston Bachélard in “The Poetics of Space”, to convey a certain quality to daydreaming that
  
“…transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity…In analyzing images of immensity, we should realize within ourselves the pure being of pure imagination.”
…. “Immensity is within ourselves.  It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests,  but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we  become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in  a world that is immense.”

It is this sense of expansion, of enlarged space, of being elsewhere that these intimate works from Ex Libris attempt to evoke when we take a moment to remain motionless and peer into a world of pure imagination.

I hope you enjoy your journey.

Ber Lazarus