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Roni Horn: Lava (Ísland (Iceland): To Place 3) [SIGNED]

Publisher: New York: Roni Horn (self-published), 1992
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 1564660354
Condition: As New / No dust jacket as issued
Item #: 100823

$1,000.00

Specifics

First edition, first and only printing. Signed in graphite on the half-title page by Horn. Hardcover. Black linen cloth with blind-stamped title, no dust jacket as issued. Photographs of lava (reproduced actual size) and text by Roni Horn, with studio photography by Morgan Rockhill, Providence, Rhode Island. Designed by Roni Horn and Anthony McCall Associates, New York. 96 pp., with 45 four-color and black and white plates, beautifully printed on heavy fine matte art paper. 10-1/2 x 8-3/8 inches. This first edition was limited to 750 hardbound copies. Out of print. Very scarce.

[Cited in Andrew Roth, ed., The Open Book. (Göteborg, Sweden: Hasselblad Center in association with Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, Germany, 2004), and in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume II. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2006).]

Condition

As New. A flawless Mint copy (from the artist's archive).

Description

Typographic and photographic drawings use the subject of lava to give form to the remarkable sense of place, which is quintessential Iceland. The lava used to make the images was collected in Iceland between 1979 and 1991. This is the third volume in the series of the work, To Place. To Place is an ongoing series of publications. Each volume is a unique dialogue addressing the relationship between identity and place. The books take as their starting point Iceland and the evolving experiences of the artist in this country.

From Roni Horn (in a 1995 interview with Claudia Spinelli): "The entrance to all my work is the idea of an encyclopedia of identity. It is best represented by the books, the series called To Place, which is extremely important to me. I have been working on this since 1988. It's really the heart. It is a series of books, each one of which adds to the whole in a way that alters the identity of it retroactively. So the first volume appears to be a book of drawings. The second book was about a completely different subject but in the same format. With the third volume people start to realize something: 'Well, this looks like a series, so there must be some relationship. But I haven't a clue as to what it is.' Then there was the fourth volume, with texts and photographs. The books are this very slow process of accumulation in the period of a life, my life."