Sorted Books: Look Who’s Talking
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, from the series Look Who’s Talking, 2022, from the project “Sorted Books,” 1993 and ongoing. Digital chromogenic prints, 15 × 12 1⁄2 inches.
In each installment of my “Sorted Books” project (1993 and ongoing), I scour an individual’s or institution’s bookshelves in search of titles that, when arranged in sequence, form short phrases, stories, poems, or commentary. The resulting photographs serve as a portrait of the collector. My subjects have included the artist Isamu Noguchi, the writers William S. Burroughs and August Strindberg, a collection of books on magic at Brown University, and several of my friends.
At the Morgan, I worked with the Carter Burden Collection of American Literature, which was amassed by that bon vivant, politician, and philanthropist between 1978 and 1995. Burden embraced the high and the low, traditions both popular and obscure. I loved finding a paperback detective novel with a provocative title beside an archival box housing a letter from John Steinbeck. Burden often sought out every edition of a given title, and I sometimes took advantage of his “repeats” to construct groupings featuring a reiterated word or phrase.
The Case of the Worried Waitress Chilly Scenes of Winter from the series Look Who’s Talking, 2022, from the project “Sorted Books,” 1993 and ongoing. Digital chromogenic prints, 15 × 12 1⁄2 inches.
The Case of the Worried Waitress Chilly Scenes of Winter from the series Look Who’s Talking, 2022, from the project “Sorted Books,” 1993 and ongoing. Digital chromogenic prints, 15 × 12 1⁄2 inches.
Big Sur from the series Look Who’s Talking, 2022, from the project “Sorted Books,” 1993 and ongoing. Digital chromogenic prints, 15 × 12 1⁄2 inches.
Dialogue over a Ouija Board from the series Look Who’s Talking, 2022, from the project “Sorted Books,” 1993 and ongoing. Digital chromogenic prints, 15 × 12 1⁄2 inches.