Vestiges, Book & Installation, 1992-94
8" x 10 "x 1.5”, Limited Edition of 20
Silk Paper, Xerox, Manipulated Silver-prints

Vestiges incorporates a limited edition artist's book with a mixed-media installation to examine issues surrounding animal welfare. Combining text, medical illustrations of animal hearts with the human heart, Grant powerfully addresses the misrepresentation and commodification of animals.  The surrounding installation of three-dimensional elements supports and enhances issues addressed in the book.

The bookwork is displayed on an altar-like table in the center of the installation. The books' accordion structure displays text on one side and imagery on the other.  The combination of the text and imagery suggests a critical consciousness that focuses on moral and ethical principles and concurrently questions traditional cultural belief systems.  

Each page of the accordion structure juxtaposes a backdrop of text associated with each animal’s respective heart. The words form a patterned backdrop with minimal significance until they enter the viewer's consciousness.  Once apparent, the texts appear haunting and provocative in their subtleties and double meanings. 

The photographs in the book are original silver-prints of medical illustrations manipulated using a variety of processes--sand paper, solvent transfers and conté crayon--and are mounted on silk paper.  The lush textural quality of the manipulated hearts creates a seductive veneer that deliberately overpowers and obliterates the text. 

A computer-synthesized sound track by artists Paul DeMarinis and Laetitia Sonami from their 1991 performance, Mechanization Takes Command emanates from beneath the altar where the book is displayed.

The bookwork was originally displayed in a gallery space with four walls.  From floor to ceiling, the walls contained texts applied with powdered tempura paint through a stencil.  The texts consist of animal's names repeated 31,000 times juxtaposed randomly with the word "murder."  The repetitive rows of words are emotionally powerful and overwhelming in their symbolically vulnerable and translucent state. 

In the installation, six 60" x 72" segmented crosses, each representing a specific animal, are mounted above the walls texts with 72 votive candles.  The crosses consist of manipulation silver-prints mounted on aluminum.  The shape of the cross echoes the symbol used by the Red Cross.  

The Vestiges book and installation is dark, evocative and ritualistic, the mood undeniably spiritual.  The haunting imagery and sound piece brings the issues of animal welfare to the forefront of public discourse.

Acquisitions: Contact Conduit Gallery
Exhibitions: Contact Susan kae Grant