Book 1987

This oversized 'Book' by Richard Artschwager is a playful investigation of form and material. The piece presents a literal interpretation of a book, in that it is clearly readable as such, whilst its composition uses a kind of faux-wood grain Formica, and blocky shapes. That Formica laminate—with its repetitive, printed pattern—is what I find most intriguing. It imitates wood, but it's so obviously not wood, which makes you think about the layers of artifice we accept in everyday life. I love how the wood-grain is applied to the simple form of the opened book, but it doesn't try to convince you that it is anything other than what it is, a representation, a simulacrum. Artschwager, like his contemporary, Roy Lichtenstein, was concerned with the readymade and the flat image. I can see these guys hanging out and discussing the difference between real and fake, original and copy. It's a question that’s still relevant today in our image-saturated world. What is real, after all, and what is just a well-executed copy?