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Bookworm: The Art of Rosamond Purcell

by Rosamond Purcell

Other authors: Sven Birkerts (Introduction)

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411605,442 (4.33)None
Books are man-made artifacts designed to convey information. When they are inevitably invaded by forces of nature and decay, they become suggestive of an alternative literary universe. Noted photographer and collage artist Rosamond Purcell has been exploring this universe for the past thirty years, and in this extraordinarily beautiful collection, the first retrospective of her work, her images teach us to read in a new way. Here are two conjoined volumes transformed by a nesting mouse into a heap of disrupted plot and straw; a 19th century French economics text re-interpreted by foraging termites, and many other oddities from a fertile imagination. Bookworm's 125 color reproductions are imaginative evidence of those processes that render literal meaning irrelevant.… (more)
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Manuscripts don't burn, Mikhail Bulgakov once famously declared, but they DO decay - and Rosamond Purcell brilliantly captures and records that decomposition in the photography and collage-art of Bookworm. Whether revealing the strange beauty of a clay-like book, the striking similarities between written symbols and dried beetle legs, or the remarkably book-like qualities of stone and brick, Purcell offers a gorgeous, thought-provoking visual essay on the inexorable passage of time, and the inevitably transient nature of human activity and achievement.

As Sven Birkerts notes in his introduction, Purcell cleverly juxtaposes the seemingly disparate elements of her "picture," encouraging the viewer to draw connections between previously unconnected themes and ideas. So it is that golden autumn leaves give the impression of flames, as in the cover piece, Leaves; the burnt book in Dante's Inferno somehow looks like an exotic blue-black butterfly; and the gorillas and other primates who show up with some regularity never look out of place in the "human" landscape.

I found myself unexpectedly moved by many of Purcell's pieces, which were both beautiful and grotesquely melancholy. If, as the artist maintains, all the world's an altered page, than I am grateful for the keen eyes that managed to pick out a few of those alterations, and offer them up for my examination. ( )
1 vote AbigailAdams26 | Jun 18, 2013 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Rosamond Purcellprimary authorall editionscalculated
Birkerts, SvenIntroductionsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
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Books are man-made artifacts designed to convey information. When they are inevitably invaded by forces of nature and decay, they become suggestive of an alternative literary universe. Noted photographer and collage artist Rosamond Purcell has been exploring this universe for the past thirty years, and in this extraordinarily beautiful collection, the first retrospective of her work, her images teach us to read in a new way. Here are two conjoined volumes transformed by a nesting mouse into a heap of disrupted plot and straw; a 19th century French economics text re-interpreted by foraging termites, and many other oddities from a fertile imagination. Bookworm's 125 color reproductions are imaginative evidence of those processes that render literal meaning irrelevant.

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Books are man-made artifacts designed to convey information. When they are inevitably invaded by forces of nature and decay, they become suggestive of an alternative literary universe. Noted photographer and collage artist Rosamond Purcell has been exploring this universe for the past thirty years, and in this extraordinarily beautiful collection, the first retrospective of her work, her images teach us to read in a new way. Here are two conjoined volumes transformed by a nesting mouse into a heap of disrupted plot and straw; a 19th century French economics text re-interpreted by foraging termites, and many other oddities from a fertile imagination.
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