Check out the images below. Does the colour of the cover of Brian Jung’s Carapace look familiar to you? That’s because this artist’s book includes a slipcover made out of the plastic from the green bins used in the artwork!
![An interior spread of "Carapace" by Brian Jungen. Both pages are a blue-green colour - the left page, partially visible, is blank, and the right page contains black and white text. The text reads: "Bowels, Combs, Guitar Picks... the 'Alberta Version' of Carapace. [By] Michael Turner. 'Transformation is a weird word to use. It implies that art transforms. It doesn't, it just plains forms.' -Roy Lichtenstein. [Paragraph break] Reading through the many reviews, articles, features and essays on Brian Jungen's work, a pattern emerges. The pattern foregrounds the artist's Dunne-za roots, his transformation of consumer products into masks and animals, and the politics his heritage and practice imply. Another pattern is the relatively limited discussion of his non-representational works (works that, to some, resemble little more than the materials they consist of). This is often the case when an artist's work is championed in the popular press, where the narrative and story rule, and figures are not sold separately. [Paragraph Break] As a child in the 1960s I did not play with Transformers like Jungen might have in the 1970s, but with G.I. Joe. When not with Joe, I was in front of the television watching strange men behaving strangely, in ways they never stepped clear of, as if caught between caterpillar and butterfly. Even as a child I knew these men were more complex than their television personae; that the caricatures they made of themselves were both who they were and who they were not-which they did impeccably, with an elegance rarely seen these days. Even as a child I knew. Even as a child I knew these men were special. [Page number] 25."](https://libapps-ca.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/151385/images/IMG_0815.jpg)
![A two-page spread of the artist's book at hand. The left page, mostly out of frame of the image, shows a full-page closeup colour photo of the Carapace sculpture in a gallery space. The bins are cut and layered on top of one another, creating a for of wavy rippled texture from the many layers of plastic. The bins are two different tones of green, one slightly more blue and one slightly more brown. In the background of the photo, two of Jungen's sculpture that resemble totem poles, composed out of Nike sneakers. The right page in the spread is bright blue, a similar colour to a blue recycling bin, with black and white text on top. The text reads: "The Creative Mis-Use of Everyday Objects. [By] Candice Hopkins. [Paragraph break] One of the first places that Brian Jungen visited upon his arrival in France in 2009 to create a new work for the FRAC de Pays the la Loire was the Musée Jules Verne. The museum housing the archive and personal effects of its famed namesake is located in the author's hometown, the port city of Nantes. Verne's writings were one of the initial sources of inspiration for Carapace. Verne. one of the first writers of science fiction is best known for the fantasy novels Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870). The relationship between Verne's writings and Carapace might seem overly simple, or perhaps too immediate. With Carapace, after all, Jungen has presented us with a shell - the remains of a giant beast - a creature not unlike those described on the pages of 20,000 leagues under the sea. But Verne had another side to him, and his contributions to literature goes beyond adventure tales. [Paragraph breaks] Despite his association with sci-fi, Verne was deeply sceptical of the positive influence of the new technologies and industrialization on human life. His most important literary contributions are much darker. (The overly pessimistic and dystopian elements of Verne's writings were-."](https://libapps-ca.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/151385/images/IMG_0823.jpg)
This publication, made in an edition of 200 total, was organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta for the last of three iterations of Jungen’s work by the same name. Shown in Nantes, Washington D.C., and Edmonton, Carapace has been one of Jungen’s largest works to date. Composed of dozens of recycling bins, the large structure formed a shape resembling a turtle shell, or a carapace, this work continued a motif that Jungen often uses in his work: found or readymade objects, transformed into imagery that connects to his Dunne-za heritage. In this case, the large-scale turtle could be alluding to the Creation story widely acknowledged by North American Indigenous nations, which call either the earth or the landmass that makes up North America, “Turtle Island.”
Read more about the publication here:
https://www.youraga.ca/publication/brian-jungen-carapace
Read more about the sculptural work here:
https://www.designboom.com/art/brian-jungen-carapace-made-from-plastic-recycling-containers/
Publication Date: 2011
ISBN: 80889501614
Accession Number: ECUAD.107478493
You can place this book on hold, to come view it in the library, here.
library@ecuad.ca 
604-844-3840 520 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC
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