Fake Books: The Art of Bibliophilic Deceit

Bourgeois scholarship as disguise: “Fake books“ are objects that simulate the most important carriers of knowledge and culture by subverting fundamental functions such as visualisation, information or entertainment. Most of these “book simulators“ are beautiful containers, which serve for storing – or hiding – approximately everything. The viewer is always confronted by the discrepancy between appearance and being, between form and function. Armin Müller has collected book dummies of very different sizes, styles and provenances from different eras: art-historically valuable, technically sophisticated and historically exciting pieces, but also kitsch of all kinds. The imaginative and creative richness of camouflage and illusion seems to be inexhaustible.