ITLY is a lyrical text/image collage of a slightly skewed American artist’s ‘Grand Tour’ of Italy,’ comprised of photographs primarily from Cortona, Tuscany, Milan, and Rome. The book’s verso side focuses on the distanced ‘long shot’ of the tourist’s perspective, while the recto features extreme close-ups in order to convey the more intimate perspective of a native resident.
The sacred and the profane, the mundane and the spectacular, the ancient and the contemporary are all juxtaposed within the text and the images, as they are in Italy itself.
The structure of the book is twofold; it can be ‘read’ as a codex book, continuing the page-turning from the verso to the recto or it can be exhibited as a two-sided screen in the tradition of the Asian screen painting, taken out and unfolded for special consideration amongst friends.
Photography by Marshall Weber and Christopher Wilde.
Poem, collage, and page design by Marshall Weber
Italian translation of the poem by Peter Spagnuolo
Digital layout and printing by Amy Mees
Accordion fold binding and slipcase by Damara Kaminecki
Digitally printed on full color, high-temperature toner copiers. Accordion fold binding and slipcase. 15.5″ x 9.5.” 16 pages. Edition of 20. 2005.