ASHES TO ASHES
An outrageously cruel gesture
tantamount to physical torture,
book burning inflicts a great loss on
personal and cultural heritage. The
image of pages blazing on bonfires has
recurred like a nightmare throughout
history, searing the philosophical
foundations of civilisations.
Ashes to Ashes presents a deeply
individualised act of absent
biblioclasm: the aftermath of a highly
personal intellectual intervention.
Riello ceremonially burned ten
personally influential works of
literature in his studio, reducing them
to illegible ashes. Their charred
remains now lie interred in bespoke
glass urns. Fictional tales such as
Joseph Roth’s Die Flucht ohne Ende
and essays such as In Pride of Idleness
by Bertrand Russell fell victim to
Riello’s literary funeral pyre; their
detritus at once a reminder of an
ambiguous artistic heritage and of
a subtle sense of personal and
cultural irony.
