The desire to classify the world has always been a need for mankind: We collect, reflect and sort the things. Michel Foucault extensively wrote about this phenomena in his book The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, one of the core works that anchor the French Structuralist school of thought.
The Finnish artist Mikko Kuorinki interpreted Foucault’s title literally and put all words of the book in alphabetical order: From “A” to “Zoophytorum”. In the tradition of conceptional art, Kuorinki reordered knowledge that is already available. He decomposed a text to an alphabetical material – and composed at the same time a new text, which offers us a very unusual view into the thinking of the French philosopher.
Published by Mark Pezinger
Softcover with ribbon, perfect binding, 10.5 × 17.8 cm, 432 pages
Edition: 500, design by Astrid Seme, 2012