artists' books collection

AT lanta 1945 + 50, by Shinro ohtake

Shinro Ohtake, AT lanta 1945 + 50.   (Atlanta: Nexus Press, 1996)

Ohtake’s book is a rich document of the visual rhythms of Tokyo’s street and Atlanta’s cultural history. Each copy is unique. The printing incorporates paper from a variety of sources, including ephemera and billboard fragments, all overprinted with dense, vibrant imagery. Culled from a huge range of cultural sources, ATlanta creates a complex cross-cultural vision in jarring, fluorescent color and colliding cultural signifiers - plus a miniature bonus book attached by a blue thread representing the ocean that separates Japan and America.

A key element of Shinro Ohtake’s practice involves pasting found imagery and materials into fragmentary compositions on found papers, including hand-drawn and painted elements. Many pages include pasted-in photographs.  The pages are generated by an additive, constructive logic that creates richly textured surfaces.