An Exciting Opportunity Lies Ahead of You

This slim, elegant and dazzling artist’s book on an exhibition by Shirana Shahbazi presents her photographs in an unconventional fashion that allows something wholly new to emerge. A few of the colourful abstract compositions exhibited are transferred full-bleed – some in cropped form – to all 44 pages of the book in such a way that their boundaries and relative proportions disappear, resulting in a continuum of images that calls to mind a hall of mirrors. The sense of confusion is amplified by alternating trimmed pages, fitting into the picture composition of the preceding and subsequent pages so perfectly that at first glance they do not appear to be separate pages at all. As the areas of the full pages covered by the trimmed pages have a semi-gloss finish, the impression of these overlays persists even after turning over the trimmed pages. In this way the photography, design, picture editing and production all come together to create a virtuoso interplay between the exhibition space and the book space that makes it nearly impossible to orientate oneself. This impression is further reinforced on the cover, where the title appears twice running over both front and back covers, almost wrapping around the book. This turns the title’s promise of an ‘exciting opportunity’ ahead into an empty one: rather than forging ahead, the reader is left turning in circles by this hall of mirrors.

Editor
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Author
Shirana Shahbazi, Zürich (CH)

Design
NORM – Dimitri Bruni, Manuel Krebs, Ludovic Varone, Zürich (CH)

Printing
DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg, Altenburg (DE)

Publisher
JRP|Editions, Genève (CH)

ISBN
978-3-03764-639-7