On the Book (Paperback, illustrated edition)

An extraordinary testament to the book as the most elegant information storage and retrieval mechanism ever invented, poet Gerrit Lansing and New York-based artist team Ligorano/Reese's conceptual essay and artist book is a multi-layered, heavily manipulated artwork. At the first level, Nora Ligorano's photo documentation of Spanish bookbinding from the 13th to the 18th century is subtly transformed into abstracted form: images of early decorative, archival, and royal bindings are digitally manipulated, enlarged, and cropped, thus recontextualizing the surface ornamentation and structural design of these early books. On top of this, Marshall Reese and Lansing's poetic text interposes the exquisite visual element, creating a meditation on the word and writing while recalling mystical elements from Sephardic and Moorish poetry. After all the book's components have been transformed and replaced, its pages scanned, its contents digitized, what remain are the physical vestiges of the book itself.