Translating World (2020)
Altered book assemblage
by
Frank Turek
The inside cover is a black-and-white photo of the Atun Cathedral sculpture of Judas Iscariot being hanged by demons. Mounted on top of this is a box covered with a black-and-white anatomical model of a human head with the skull cut away to reveal the brain. This box is open at the top and contains three removable vials. Two of the vials contain a card with a row of cuneiform characters. The third contains a card with an English translation of the other two cards. Pasted directly above this box is a paragraph about the etymology of the word “macaber.” On the bottom left of the inside cover is a large letter E in a red oval. The frame of this piece is covered with a black-and-white photo of a fancy private rail car. The central image of the piece is a cropping of the early fifteenth-century painting by Robert Peake of a young Henry, Prince of Wales, and his horse. Pasted across the bottom of the painting is a vivid color photo of one of the Sinagua cliff dwellings. Flanking the portrait are two plastic graduated cylinders filled with pieces of crushed colored glass. A chain is draped across the top of this section pinned to the sides with upholstery tacks. Hanging from the chain are a hand-hewn brass bell and a replica hammer cut out of tin. The inside side panels are etched illustrations of an armored soldier on the left, and a captured sailor on the right. The inside frame top is a panel of mirror, and the bottom of this section is covered with a blue wallpaper swatch with a paisley design. A narrow gap between the top section and the bottom of the whole frame contains two narrow book-like fabrications covered in green paper and wrapped in a wide, russet-red ribbon. Each of these “books” opens to a collage of a section of a map of the Northeast seaboard on the left inside cover and a snippet of text from a grammar primer on the right. In the back of this narrow gap where the books are held, is the text, “Which Animals May Live Here.”
Original book cover title:
Book cover used for this piece: In The Steps Of The Master by H.V. Morton
Some elements of this assemblage. Select one to find other altered books with the same.
armor, bell, brain, cave dwelling, chain, crushed glass, cuneiform, demons, gothic, grammar primer, hammer, horse, letter, maps, mirror, portrait, sculpture, skull, sword, vials