Harvest (The Black Queen) (2005)
Altered book assemblage
by
Frank Turek
The inside cover is a wallpaper sample of a large orange-and-blue paisley pattern against a light brown background. Mounted on the center of the inside cover is a children’s block wooden block with the letter ‘I’ on the bottom. A clipping of text from a book about animals is pasted over the front and sides of this block. Resting on top of this block is black queen chess piece. The top and bottom of the frame is covered with a late-medieval painting showing a large crowd engaged in a variety of outdoor activities with a castle in a field in the background.Covering the middle left and right sections of the frame is a black-and-white reproduction of a Baroque-era painting featuring two children with their dogs. (Children of Charles the First of England by van Dyck.) Inside the main compartment, the background is a color photograph of a few stems of wheat against a blue sky and on the bottom is a color photograph of an atomic bomb test explosion. In the top left is a collaged tile of a color illustration of a man pointing to a graph in front of the White House. Encircling the background at the base of the frame is a green beaded necklace. Mirrors are mounted on the top and the bottoms of this interior section. Glued to the bottom mirror are a set of legs standing in blue pants. In place of the torso of this toy figure is a large pearl bead with a pin sticking out of it. On the left and right side panels of the sections are black-and-white photographs of mineral samples and pinned to each sample with map tacks are various degree ranges in Fahrenheit. The signature, title, and date are on the bottom of the inside front cover.
Original book cover title:
Book cover used for this piece: Blue Trousers by Murasaki
Some elements of this assemblage. Select one to find other altered books with the same.
atomic bomb, baroque portrait, black, blue trousers, chess piece, color photo, green, map tacks, medieval, mirror, necklace, paisley, pearl bead, queen, Van Dyck, wallpaper pattern, White House, wooden block