Souvenir is a deconstruction of The Galaxy, Marion Rudiwitz’s 1969 High School Yearbook from Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, Long Island. This yearbook was found by Weber one night in 1999 in a pile of (Marion’s?) belongings tossed onto the curb in Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village in what was clearly a quick and haphazard departure. He took the book home, cruelly laughed at it for a few days with friends, and then – in an act of nostalgic piety or apology – spent the next three years tearing the yearbook apart and reassembling it into a vintage stamp album.

Souvenir is a talismanic antidote to revisionist attempts to diminish the legacy of the 60s, a decade that still holds a revealing ethical mirror to brutality and arrogance of our contemporary consumer culture. It recalls a time when college students in the United States had class-consciousness, deeply held idealism, and aspired to more than a super-sized version of their parents’ lifestyle.

The editioned version of Souvenir is a simulacrum of the eponymous unique collage book. The original collages were digitally scanned at a high resolution, color corrected so that the high-quality Fiery LaserJet printed pages match the unique book’s pages. It is constructed with cellophane interleaves that visually and tactilely recreate the experience of the unique book. Digital layout and printing by Amy Mees. Book design and production by Mark Wagner. Collage and page design by Marshall Weber.

On Mohawk Vellum paper and other archival papers and clothes. 8″ x 5.5.” 28 pages. Numbered edition of 35 signed by the artists, with different vintage ‘portraits’ of the artists taken from the original The Galaxy yearbook, in a slipcover.10 AP copies numbered 1960-1969.