Yto Barrada: A Guide to Trees and Fossils for Governors and Foreigners
Yto Barrada
Koenig Books, London, 2016
€60,00
on order
This gorgeous two-volume set collects two artist’s books by French multimedia artist Yto Barrada (born 1971), both of which are proposed as mock-guides: A Guide to Trees for Governors and Gardeners and A Guide to Fossils for Forgers and Foreigners.
A Guide to Trees: In the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift, Yto Barrada’s artist book is a guide humbly submitted by an anonymous bureaucrat, zealously advising his readers on how to prepare their city for a Visit by a high-ranking official. Seemingly reasonable at first, these directives gradually begin to suggest something amiss behind the patriotic Potemkin facades.
A Guide to Fossils: Millions of years ago, todayʼs Sahara desert was a tropical paradise. Today, the arid space between Moroccoʼs Atlas Mountains and the desert are home to a hardscrabble cottage industry of excavating, preparing, forging, and selling fossils. Yto Barrada has explored this unique landscape though years of research, photographs, films and objects.
ISBN: 9783960980292
