The Bidoun Library at the New Museum

To create the Bidoun Library currently on view at the New Museum, in the Bowery, curators entered combinations of the following search terms into Google: “Arab,” “paperback,” “1970s,” and “<$3.” They bought what they found, without regard for aesthetic merit, content, or even form, in order to amass a library of pamphlets, novels, guidebooks, primers, textbooks, and other documents that describe, were published in, or deal in some way with the Middle East. As long as you wear the white gloves the museum provides, you can thumb through about 700 titles, including Lassy and the Shabby Sheik, Weightless in Gaza, Guide for U.S. Forces Serving in Iraq, published in 1943, and Turn the Other Sheik (tagline: watch how passion flares under the hot desert sun for these rogue sheiks).

Photo: thanks