SURF
Originally published in an edition of 10 for the installation Glass TidalPool Surf, this book fetishist’s dream has now been reissued. The installation was in response to the funding denied Robert Smithson’s “Island of Broken Glass” project, a plan to drop 100 tons of glass onto a rock off Vancouver beach, which had environmentalists seeing red. Should ART take priority over ENVIRONMENT? True to it’s concept the book has a sandpaper cover which will shred the other books on your bookshelf. Keep it in a special place then, and pull it out to show friends. On the odd numbered pages are headshots and often hilarious corporate bios of Kodak film employees from 1956, a time when it was still believed that a picture couldn’t lie. On the even numbered pages are almost filmic shots of degenerated bodies writing on curbs with chalk. Photographing writing as performance. Aesthetically, the book’s effect is like the surf itself, a rhythmic edge, dangerous, tactile, and a little grainy. I found the press kit required reading to understand the cryptic introductory essay steeped in words like “mimesis.” Perhaps things would be clarified if the installation were in front of me, but it’s not necessary because SURF is a beautifully designed art piece in itself, not simply a mere catalogue. (AB)
chapbook, $10, 64 pgs, Joshua Lovelace, Intrepid Tourist Press, PO Box 403, Union Bay, BC, V0R 3BO