(Mint) Cover to Cover by Michael Snow

An artist’s book by Canadian artist Michael Snow, using the physical structure of the book to explore the relationship between photography, cinema, sequence and perception.

Cover to Cover is an artist’s book by Canadian artist Michael Snow.

Originally published in 1975 as part of a series produced by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Cover to Cover belongs to a now-legendary group of publications overseen by Kasper König and Benjamin Buchloh. The series also included books by artists such as Michael Asher, Dara Birnbaum, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Claes Oldenburg, Martha Rosler and Yvonne Rainer.

This long-awaited reissue was published by New York-based Primary Information and Light Industry. Across each spread, photographs of a figure seen from the front and back unfold sequentially, creating a cinematic progression as the pages are turned. Yet the book moves beyond a straightforward representation of time: reproductions are inserted, images are reversed and visual relationships shift from page to page, producing a continual instability within the sequence.

Through these devices, Snow expands the relationship between the moving image and the book as a physical medium. Once opened, the publication draws the reader into a labyrinthine sequence before eventually returning them to the outside—a singular artist’s book in which the act of turning pages becomes inseparable from the work itself.

Limited to 2,500 copies. Out of print.

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Title: Cover to Cover
Artist: Michael Snow
Publisher: Primary Information / Light Industry, 2020
Format: Softcover
Size: 178 × 226 mm
Pages: 316
Edition: First edition of 2,500 copies
ISBN: 9781734489712

Condition: Mint. Sealed in original shrink wrap.