On Saturday, at 401 Richmond's Red Head Gallery, artist Robin Pacific began giving away her entire personal library of 1,670 books in a conceptual art installation called "Shelf Portrait." If you heard about this over the last couple of weeks and it occurred to you that a well-publicized giveaway of free, interesting books in downtown Toronto on a Saturday might draw a bit of a crowd, well, you were right. Torontoist is happy to report that the same thing also occurred to the show's organizers, and they were well prepared for Saturday's mob scene. They distributed tickets with times printed on them -- 50 tickets per half-hour interval -- sparing attendees from having to wait in line all afternoon. (I showed up at 1:30 and snagged a 3:00 ticket.) Pacific also imposed a 4-book-per-person limit, ensuring that the show wasn't cleaned out by the end of the first half-hour.
Source: Torontoist: Portrait of the Artist as a Vanishing Library
