Narrowing down my choices to 2 books Henk advised me one was a classic he owned 4 copies and the other he knew nothing about. Sat among the group was a woman about 50 who was neither introduced nor introduced herself. For the sake of the narrative, she will be called Cecille.
Cecille was conflicted about many things and had earlier that day talked herself into great confusion about the significance of a plastic Marylin Monroe compared to that of a plastic Buddha. At some point it all spilled out: an architect for 27 years, fed up of not being able to practice creativity within her job; taking a year out; putting everything on hold; trying to start again.
In trying to solve this issue Tur referenced Oldenburg as an example of an artist using interior design and architectural ideas in an artistic form: suggesting Cecille might learn from this. They were talking in riddles. Cecille here being the front of this catalog, and Tur the back. Imagine above your two images: on the left a large black and white photograph of a sink and on the right a deflated, dilapidated version sown out of what looks like bouncy castle material: but here I promise not to dwell too much on content but what this content gives to the form, for there are 20 other pages like this in the book.
Here the designer has chosen not to separate the book by sculpture, photograph, sketch but by more obvious subject. In fact why I chose the catalog- apart from vague memories it evoked- was because of its simple design: the paper is thin and dimly laminate; the font is understated and normal; the arrangement of the text is practical: it sits more or less where you expect it to. The catalog is thin, glue blinded and flops slightly when you open it. Small black borders outline some images but most are left just as they are.
These images are often black and white and the coloured ones are stuck in. Initially I thought this was a design decision to emphasize certain works but I found out it was just to make the printing cheaper. Pulling various other Oldenburg books and catalogues from the library might, I thought, give me some much needed context. Two of the books were published in New York so I checked to see if they had the same designer.
