(the series is informally referred to as Books and each photograph has its own distinct title. See captions)
2006
Digital c-print in artist's frame
Dimensions variable for each work
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Two in the Labyrinth, 15.75 x 13.25 inches
Nadja Nadja, 18 x 15 inches
Two Against Nature, 18 x 15 inches
Two Thousand Plateaus, 19.5 x 16.5 inches
Jane Eyre Jane Eyre, 18 x 15 inches
Two Hearts of Darkness, 13 x 15 inches
Two Voyeurs, 18 x 15 inches
Two Contingent Objects of Contemporary Art, 25” x 19.5”
Two Postmodern Conditions, 19.5 x 16.5 inches
Two Flowers of Evil, 18 x 15 inches
Two North China Lovers, 18 x 15 inches
Two Histories of Sexuality, 18 x 15 inches
Two Books of Laughter and Forgetting, 18 x 15 inches
Two Impossibilities, 18 x 15 inches
The Snows of Two Kilimanjaros, 18 x 15 inches
Two Deaths in Venice, 15.75 x 13.25 inches
Two Societies of the Spectacle, 19.5 x 16.5 inches
Two Vice Consuls, 18 x 15 inches
Two Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 18 x 15 inches
Homer Homer, 18 x 15 inches
Two Brave New Worlds, 15.75 x 13.25 inches
Lisa Tan relocated to New York from Los Angeles and moved in with her boyfriend at the time, also an artist, which resulted in their respective libraries converging. The photographs create an index of the books they own in common as a type of portraiture. The titles of the works humorously play off of their coupling, for instance, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness becomes Two Hearts of Darkness. The photographs take up individual subjecthood as it is formed in part by the shared experiences of literature – and in the case at hand – the books are indicative of an iteration of a certain American liberal arts education. Still, no matter how many common references two people might share, a gap always exists between the spines.
Texts and interviews
This Long Century. “94 at 34, My Grandmother and Alain Robbe-Grilett.” Entry 27, 2009. Web.link / pdf
Szewczyk, Monika. Text for the exhibition Ex-Libris. Galerie VidalCuglietta, Brussels, 2011.
link / pdf
Exhibition History
Difference and Repitition, Galeria Raquel Arnaud, São Paulo, 2012Ex-Libris, Galerie Vidal Cuglietta, Brussels, 2011
There is No(w) Romanticism, FDC Brussels, 2009
Sturm und Drang, Galerie Kamm, Berlin, 2008
Local Transit, Artists Space, New York, 2006
Lisa Tan, Grimm|Rosenfeld, New York, 2006