Elisabeth Tonnard

This book is a portable swimming pool that can be put on a bookshelf. It is based on Ed Ruscha’s book Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass from which one swimming pool was photographed. If the sheets are carefully removed from the book and laid down next to each other, this swimming pool can be installed at the size of a small swimming pool. The book was bound using an adhesive that allows the sheets to be taken out. Doing so will of course destroy the book in its bound form.

Published in an edition of nine copies and an artist proof by Elisabeth Tonnard in Leerdam, The Netherlands, 2013. Installation size ± 648 x 648 cm. Book size 14.8 x 18.8 x 19 cm. Full color digital print, 3164 pages, plus inserted sheet with overview and instructions for installation. See more images.

On view at the Gagosian Gallery, Ed Ruscha Books & Co, 980 Madison Avenue, New York City, March 5 – April 27 2013. The work can also be purchased there.

Thanks to current and past members of ABC Artists’ Books Cooperative and to David Mount and Johan Velter for corresponding with me about this project. Special thanks to Chris Burnett, Michael Maranda and Wim Kamsteeg for helping me overcome the technical difficulties.

If ever there was a book to dive into, this would be it. Mishka Henner

Click on any image below to see the image gallery showing production shots of a smaller black and white maquette.