A HUMUMENT: A Treated Victorian Novel
Signed limited edition, with two signed and numbered prints, of this "third revised edition" (fourth overall) of one of the most famous artist's books of the last fifty years.
Fine in a near fine or better jacket.
Price: $2,500.00
A HUMUMENT: A Treated Victorian Novel
"A HUMUMENT has an uncanny knack of keeping up with the times. In the Sixties it read like a development of William Burroughs's cut-up method for remixing text, along with composer John Cage's use of chance music. Twenty years later, the work's playful way with authorship, fragmented narrative and ornament embodied the spirit of postmodernism. And now, in the digital age, A HUMUMENT has flourished, first on the web and then with its own iPad app." — David Jennings
A more than 50-year-long undertaking begun in 1966, Phillips' altered book project remains one of the most popular and important artists' book of the last century. Inspired in part by William Burroughs' cut-up methods, Phillips utilized a used book from his local bookshop (the otherwise unremarkable 1892 Victorian potboiler THE HUMAN DOCUMENT by William H. Mallock) in order to create a new work by elaborately coloring, painting over, crossing out, obfuscating, effacing, or otherwise altering Mallock's existing text. In doing so, Phillips allowed a new narrative to emerge, whose "relationship of overlay and latency, of invention and contrast [...] gives the transformed book its tension" (Drucker 110).
Originally published in a limited edition in 1970, a first trade edition followed in 1980. Since then, Phillips has continued to revise and add to the book over the decades and he issued more than six editions (each revised) during his lifetime. This, the "third revised edition" (i.e. fourth overall) includes 40 new pages and like most of the revised editions was also issued in a deluxe limited edition, as here. The book remains a beloved classic — arguably the most popular and enduring book of its kind — and these deluxe editions remain scarce on the marketplace. A beautiful copy of a major artist's book.
Read more: Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists' Books; David Jennings, "Long Revision," The Spectator, 19 May 2012.
The Object
First edition thus. (London): Thames and Hudson, (2004). Original full yellow cloth. In original unclipped (no price) color pictorial jacket. [8], 368, [8] pages. Limited edition, one of 175 copies signed by Phillips, this #69. Additionally loosely laid in are two prints from the book, each also numbered 69 from an edition of 175 and both signed by Phillips — as issued. Touch of trace sunning to spine. Else bright, sharp, and clean overall.
The Fine Print
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