As the title suggests, Untitled (27 Books) consists of 27 individual books that Stella Waitzkin (1920–2003, American) cast from their original leather-bound versions using polyester resin. The artist had an apartment at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where cast objects lined and filled her floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, consuming the space. This emphasis on the physical space was part of Waitzkin’s notion that casting books cements the objects as repositories of knowledge. The idea of the cast book as an object of wisdom and communication would become satisfyingly tangible for the artist. Waitzkin regarded books with the same consideration as sculpture—as objects equally reflective and essentially illuminating.

–Affinities and Outliers: Highlights from the University at Albany Fine Art Collections