Michael Snow
New York University Press, New York, 1975, English
Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History; Nonfiction, Photography
ISBN: 9780814777695
On 1 book list
Warren Lehrer

This pioneering book (1975) by the Canadian filmmaker, photographer, sculptor, musician, and book artist Michael Snow helped prove that you can read pictures—and that a book can be a movie, or at least an alternative medium for a cinematic experience. In fact, an architecture student recently filmed the book, making a kind of out-of-print trailer: vimeo.com/15938335 (it’s wonderful, but don’t judge the book by its movie).

Cover to Cover can be read forward or backward, and is presented entirely through a sequence of photographs—parallax views of the book itself (the front and back covers depict the front and back of a door, respectively); and of Michael Snow walking through the door of a studio (from both sides); placing a record on a turntable (from his vantage point and the turntable’s); and driving (under an overpass) to a gallery, whereupon he picks up the very book you are holding in your hands.

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