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A humument : Vol. 1

Artist's Book
1970 (published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The notes accompanying 'A Humument' explain how the work was made: 'A Victorian novel (A Human Document, by W.H. Mallock published in 1892) has been taken page by page and altered, adapted and metamorphosed'.

Originally inspired by reading about William Burroughs' 'cut up' technique, Phillips pursued his own variant on this idea by selecting a book at random and altering it page by page. He began by scoring out unwanted words with pen and ink but soon progressed to obliterating the original text with pictorial compositions using acrylic gouache.

With every page the text to be left exposed was the first thing decided upon. The 'new' texts comprise, among other things, 'poems, music scores, parodies, notes on aesthetics, autobiography, concrete texts, romance, [and] mild erotica', in an attempt to make a Gesamtkunstwerk. The pictorial compositions sometimes allude to the original text, while at other times reference the 'new' text.
For Phillips, the intermingling of word and image on the painted pages resembles medieval miniatures.

This edition of 'A Humument', the first of many variants, was issued in 1970 by Tetrad Press. It takes the form of ten silk-screened pages housed in a green box and makes up volume 1 in a series of ten, each volume containing varying numbers of pages.

As well as numerous versions of 'A Humument', Mallock's novel has been the source for many other projects, including a pair of humument globes entitled 'Terrestrial and celestial globes' also held in the National Art Library.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleA humument : Vol. 1 (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Printed on Engineering Cartridge.
Brief description
Artist's book, 'A humument : Vol. 1', by Tom Phillips, Tedtrad Press, London, 1970
Physical description
"A Humument is a treated work. A Victorian novel (A Human Document by W. H. Mallock published in 1892) has been taken page by page and altered, adapted and metamorphosed; its text has been excavated for new ambiguities of character and situations and new ironies and paradoxes of utterance. In place of the unused part of Mallock's text an intricate web of visual iconography has sprung up, reminiscent of the varicoloured illuminations of Mediaeval and Oriental manuscripts." - Prospectus.

Dimensions
  • Height: 20cm
  • Width: 15cm
Summary
The notes accompanying 'A Humument' explain how the work was made: 'A Victorian novel (A Human Document, by W.H. Mallock published in 1892) has been taken page by page and altered, adapted and metamorphosed'.

Originally inspired by reading about William Burroughs' 'cut up' technique, Phillips pursued his own variant on this idea by selecting a book at random and altering it page by page. He began by scoring out unwanted words with pen and ink but soon progressed to obliterating the original text with pictorial compositions using acrylic gouache.

With every page the text to be left exposed was the first thing decided upon. The 'new' texts comprise, among other things, 'poems, music scores, parodies, notes on aesthetics, autobiography, concrete texts, romance, [and] mild erotica', in an attempt to make a Gesamtkunstwerk. The pictorial compositions sometimes allude to the original text, while at other times reference the 'new' text.
For Phillips, the intermingling of word and image on the painted pages resembles medieval miniatures.

This edition of 'A Humument', the first of many variants, was issued in 1970 by Tetrad Press. It takes the form of ten silk-screened pages housed in a green box and makes up volume 1 in a series of ten, each volume containing varying numbers of pages.

As well as numerous versions of 'A Humument', Mallock's novel has been the source for many other projects, including a pair of humument globes entitled 'Terrestrial and celestial globes' also held in the National Art Library.
Other number
95.S.44 - NAL Pressmark
Collection
Library number
38041800804536

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Record createdMay 15, 2014
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