Elisabeth Tonnard

Installation at Poetry International, Rotterdam, 2009

Interior Monologue pairs images of Parisian apartment interiors from a real-estate catalogue with texts found in the “literary phrases” section of Grenville Kleiser’s Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases.

The project presents abandoned remnants of speech, paired to images that are likewise abandoned: orphaned photos from a real-estate catalogue, snapped by ever so many unidentified photographers. Texts and images look as though they are quite established on their pages, and in a healthy relationship towards each other. This soon proves false. Each element seems to be speaking for itself. The scripts do not function as descriptions; and no knowledge is gained from the information gathered. The development of a narrative is cut short on each page. Meanwhile the reader cannot avoid relating images and texts, and interpreting the images by means of the texts. Even if the combinations of texts and images are determined by chance: the phrases are in alphabetical order and the images are in the order that the magazine they come from presented them in.

This work is made in an edition. For more information and images of the edition, see this page.

Inkjet print, full color. 128 single-sided sheets (12.7 x 17.8 cm).
Acquoy, The Netherlands, 2009.

See more images.

Installation at my solo show ‘The Man of the Crowd’, Johan Deumens Gallery, Haarlem, 2009