I’ll admit, I’m definitely guilty of judging books by their covers. That’s how I happened upon this week’s featured book Spartacus Chetwynd. Published on the occasion of the Spartacus Chetwynd exhibition at the Migros Museum in 2007, the book consists of documents from Chetwynd’s performances and installations including programs, photographs, and related texts and images. The catalogue was published by JRP| Ringier in 2008 as a limited edition of 1000 copies. It is 296 pages (150 color and 146 black and white) covered by a paper dust jacket.
Spartacus Chetwynd is a performance artist based in London, England. Her performances cover a variety of themes, making references to both high culture and popular culture, with hilarious results. In Erotics in Beastiality, a series of performances for the Liverpool Biennial in 2004, Chetwynd combines Emperor Nero’s taboo-breaking sex life, Meat Loaf’s A Bat out of Hell, Hokusai’s Octopus print, and poodles. Documents of this performance and others are inside the book.
In this collection, one can really see the wide range of influences Chetwynd’s practice deals with, from film and television to literature to art history to philosophy – from Conan The Barbarian to Alvin Hall, Jabba the Hut to King Midas, Michael Jackson’s Thriller to Charles Dickens’ The Personal History of David Copperfield. Spartacus Chetwynd is an extremely visually pleasing book that resonates with our culture’s cacophonous and constant information and sensory overload.
Click here to access more information about Spartacus Chetwynd through the library catalogue.
If you’re interested in seeing more documentation of Chetwynd’s work, check out Six Actions for New York City, also located in our Artists’ Book collection. Published on the occasion of the project of the same name, Six Actions for New York City documents a series of performances staged in New York City between May and November in 2007. The project included work by works by Adrian Piper, Gelitin, Spartacus Chetwynd, Jonathan Monk, and Javier Téllezfitful. In Chetwynd’s project, she turned the street into an open studio, flipping the city inside out.
Click here to access the free zine Spartacus Chetwynd created for the performance.
-Hannah Dempsey
604-844-3840
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