Hesperides (2023)
Altered book assemblage
by
Frank Turek
On the inside cover is a cloth-covered mat framing a black-and-white photo of a dramatically lighted woman’s face. Mounted above and below this photo is a strip of division examples from a mathematics primer. The frame of this book assemblage is covered with text an essay titled Nature, Man & Miracles. The background of this piece is a cropping of the painting Macbeth And The Witches by Albert Pinkham Ryder. Across the bottom of this piece is a row of four glass vials. Each vial contains a photo of one of the conspirators in President Lincoln’s assassination. Circling the top of each vial is a scrap of text from an English language primer. They read: Which dish has much, Which pile has much, Which vase has much, and Which dish has much. These vials each hold a sprig of a plastic flower. At the bottom, fronting the vials is a card is a black-and-white photo of drinking glasses in a row with varying amounts of water to demonstrate the change in tone when the glasses are tapped. Above the vials is a narrow shelf from a piece of yellow-tinted glass. Pasted to the middle front of this shelf is a snippet from a comic book dialog bubble that says, “Can you work them?” The side panels are collaged with sections from a landscape painting depicting a pale yellow sky.
Original book cover title:
Book cover used for this piece: Hesper by Hamlin Garland







Some elements of this assemblage. Select one to find other altered books with the same.