Kelly Large: 744 x 744 x 744

About

In 2008 Kelly Large began requesting the least popular books whose abstracts contain the word artist from the British Library collection. Low usage items are held in an ancillary storage space in Boston Spa, Yorkshire. They are driven down to temporary storage in the high usage St. Pancras library site, on request. These unpopular publications have been requested and used, en mass, as material for the production of works in ‘744 x 744 x 744'. ”¢ Large has been a reader at the British Library for 1398 days. ”¢ Her favoured study desk at the British Library measures 76.5 x 116cm. ”¢ There are over 150,000000 items in the British Library collection. ”¢ It takes up to 3 days from the request date for a low usage publication to travel from the ancillary British Library storage space to the primary storage space in St. Pancras, London. ”¢ A reader is limited to 10 collection requests per day. ”¢ There are 760 unpopular books identified by the artist between 1973 (when the library first came into operation) and October 2009. ”¢ Each of the 760 books has been measured and weighed. ”¢ The total volume of the unpopular books is 0.04m3. ”¢ Packed together the unpopular books measure 744 x 744 x 744mm. ”¢ The total surface area of the unpopular books is 7 x 4.7m ”¢ The total weight of unpopular books is 334kg ”¢ Osmium metal has an atomic weight of 190.23 and a density of 22.61g/cm3. As such it is the densest material known to man. ”¢ 11 of the unpopular books were on constant loan during the weighing and measuring period. ”¢ There are 5.3 miles between the artist's studio and the gallery