ABELARDO MORELL (born 1948)
PROPERTY OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
ABELARDO MORELL (born 1948)

Dictionary

Details
ABELARDO MORELL (born 1948)
Dictionary
Gelatin silver print. 1994. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 7/15 in ink on the reverse of the mount.
39 x 291/8in. (99.1 x 74cm.) Framed.
Provenance
With Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco;
to the present owner.
Literature
See: Smithsonian, A Camera in a Room: Photographs by Abelardo Morell, p. 59.

Lot Essay

The dynamic quality of Dictionary evokes the great rolling wave of a tsunami or the monumental structure of an ancient Egyptian pyramid. Abstracting an everyday form, Abelardo Morell invites us to examine the delicate texture of the tome's pages, like the ripples of a sand dune carved by the wind. As in his other images of books in this series which show the optical play of graphic elements as they jump from the page or in his ongoing series of camera obscura works, he turns the everyday world we pass through upside down, challenging us to investigate the ordinary.

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