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.

This book can be read from the front or the back, one direction in English, and the other in German, where one encounters texts by various authors on topics such as the art of forgery, the fiction of photography as a medium of reality, the detective as a seeker of truth, history and memory. In addition to the texts, the images are important as references to our visual culture. They come from, among others, Rodin, Duchamp, Bonnard, Vermeer, Godard, as well as from our everyday world, and are partly interwoven with texts, partly scattered throughout the book like vignettes.

Barbara Bloom and Ben Lerner share a fascination with intricate dramas of framing and reframing: what happens to an image or a phrase when it is re-encountered, recontextualized, recombined — when a particular frame of reference is established or collapses? How is meaning accrued or eroded through repetition, across pages or generations? How are images or sentences enlisted in — or suddenly freed from — the construction of our personal and collective mythologies?

Memorial edition produced on the 10 year anniversary of the deaths of Wies Smals, Josine van Droffelaar, Gerhard von Graevenitz, Martin Barkhuis and Hendrik Smals in a plane crash.

“This is a facsimile of a small aluminum tag which reads ‘Aanwezig’ (Present) on one side, and ‘Afwezig’ (Absent) on the other. It was found at an airport for private planes in Holland in May of 1983. These tags hung on hooks under the names of pilots who frequented that airport, indicating their presence or absence. I was moved to take one, and have had it on my desk ever since.”

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

Barbara Bloom explores the nature of gifts in relation to aspects such as wrapping, covering and uncovering, pleasure, secrets, and generosity. Through an exploration of art historical and cultural practices, she reveals the complicated relationship we have with the concept of the gift, considering how these traded objects take on meaning and serve as symbols of our affections, but also anticipate a sense of loss. The gift is a means of apology, making advances, gaining trust, and providing assurances. Through gift-giving, we show a version of intimacy, love, and desire that is deliberate and controlled, but also often more meaningful than intended. With texts by Susan Tallman.

Comes with a bookplate signed by the artist.

Card from a tear-off calendar with artist postcards for a series of events and screenings in the Groninger Museum in August 1977. Including artists were Fitzgibbon & Winters, Dekker, Taal Handelingen, Carolee Schnemann, Yvonne Rainer, Michael Snow, Michael Waisvisz, David Salle, Jack Goldstein, Paul Sharits, Chris Langdon, Pieter Holstein, Nan Hoover, Barbara Bloom, Vito Acconci, Charlemagne Palestine.

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