Tris Vonna-Michell

Artist's book

This book by British artist Tris Vonna-Michell marks a continuation and implementation of his artistic practice through the medium of an artist’s book. Vonna-Michell is a memory traveler who runs through the past and present. In his works, images, sound, light, and the most ordinary objects become the material of a totally individual experience where reality and fiction merge, and journey, memories, and invention coexist.

The stories and the visual material assembled in this book originated and began their evolution in 2003. Since 2008, they have been gradually modified and further expanded in a series of projects at, among others, Kunsthalle Zürich, GAMeC—Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V., and the Fondazione Galleria Civica—Centro di Ricerca sulla Contemporaneità di Trento. Taking these projects as a starting point, Tris Vonna-Michell conceived this book as a further elaboration of his artistic practice, interweaving multiple narrative threads. Behind an identical cover, the seemingly “same” is presented in variations that were developed through performative improvisations over the first version of the text, initial the placing of the images and positioning of the inserts. The book is not a fixed entity but a narrative construction developed in space and time, conceived as an in-progress tale and evolving in variations over a period of time.

Published with Fondazione Galleria Civica—Centro di Ricerca sulla Contemporaneità di Trento, GAMeC—Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V., and Kunsthalle Zürich.