DAVID WOJNAROWICZ, Rimbaud in New York 1978–79, PPP Editions / Roth Horowitz, 2004

The face had already travelled before Wojnarowicz put it on the street. Étienne Carjat photographed Rimbaud in 1871; Ray Johnson appropriated that portrait for the 1957 New Directions edition of Illuminations; Wojnarowicz later took the image from his own copy, enlarged it on the photostat machine at a temporary advertising job, cut out the eyes and turned it into a mask. Rimbaud then reappeared in Times Square, on the subway, at Coney Island and along the piers — a nineteenth-century image passed through publishing, reproduction and downtown New York before becoming Wojnarowicz's surrogate.

Twenty-five images became a P·P·O·W portfolio in 1990. After Wojnarowicz's death, the negatives entered the Fales Library archive. In autumn 2004 Andrew Roth returned to them, producing and exhibiting a larger group of 44 photographs and publishing this book through PPP Editions. The series therefore exists through repeated acts of retrieval: book image, mask, photograph, archive, book again.

PPP Editions / Roth Horowitz, New York, 2004. Edited by Andrew Roth; essay by Jim Lewis. 22 × 29 cm, 108 pages, hardcover. First edition of 1,000 copies.

Condition: Very good. Still shrink-wrapped, with light handling and minor wear visible to the wrapping.

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