The Book as Art exhibit at Boston College

I went to the 'The book as art' exhibition on the 4th of May. I may be a person who can't see beyond conventional ways to portray art or books, but a lot of what I saw, to me at least, didn't really qualify as a 'book as art' or even as 'art'. A bunch of spectacle frames broken and put in a frame is not a book, and I don't see how it qualifies as art either. Art has a purpose. I don't see how being vague in conveying a message qualifies as a purpose. However there were some pieces of work that did reach out and grab me. One on particular was by a russian artist, Vera Khlebnikova who told the story of post communism Russia. After the fall of the communist government, censorship was done away with and the press began to print stories that wouldn't have passed the censor board of the old guard. Amongst the things that were printed were personal ads. These ranged from ads for services to sexual ads. Amonst the ads what stood out was this ad: 'I am dying. I have a 4 year old daughter. Need loving foster parents to care for her'. The ad was cut and pasted from a newspaper along with a photograph of the girl in question. With just the pages of a book, a simple ad and a photograph, the woman had created a moving piece of art.