Reign of Narcissism: A Guidebook and Anthology from Ovid to Bruce Chatwin
Barbara Bloom
Published by Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart; Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich & Serpentine Gallery, London, 1990, 262 pp. with envelope insert (colour & b/w ill.), 14 × 20.5 cm, English/German
Price: €34 (Out of stock)

A compendium to the widely traveled installation of the same title, this book guides us through the “set” of a 19th century museum room where all aspects of what we see are covered with traces of the artist’s likeness. (Self) portraits which take the form of vanity mirrors, watermark porcelain tea cups, chocolates, cameos, designs for her tombstone commemorative stamps showing the hospital where the artist was born, even period chairs upholstered with a cloth pattern of the artist’s dental X-rays. The texts delve us into the worlds of Hegel on The Greek Profile, Virginia Woolf’s The Lady in the Looking Glass, Ovid’s myths of Echo and Narcissus, Bruce Chatwin’s Utz, and Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray. The overall effect of this elegant, subtle and ironic work is ultimately quite eerie.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

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