Untitled (American Photographs)

Steve Wolfe

1999–2000 · Oil, screenprint, modeling paste, paper, wood, and canvas board · Photographs

Why not judge a book by its cover? Wolfe’s meticulously crafted facsimiles of his favorite volumes beg this question, suggesting that the stories told by a sunned spine or ragged dust jacket are as important as those printed on the pages within. Remaking mass-market books by hand, he records the wear and tear inflicted on his personal library, illustrating the afterlives of iconic commercial publications. His careworn copy of Walker Evans’s 1938 exhibition catalogue is a case in point. As the cover design’s ironic omission of pictures prompts readers to question the very idea of an "American photograph," so Wolfe’s facsimile—which contains no photographs at all—interrogates our relationship to landmark texts.

Artist

Steve Wolfe

Date

1999–2000

Medium

Oil, screenprint, modeling paste, paper, wood, and canvas board

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Jeffrey Fraenkel and Alan Mark, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary, 2020