June 23, 2009

Tom Phillips - "A Humument"

I was looking at my copy of "A Humument" last night. Back in the mid-sixties an artist called Tom Phillips bought a copy of "A Human Document" by W.H.Mallock and began drawing and painting on the pages, leaving chosen words intact to make strange poetry across and down the pages, embedded in the pictures he built around them to illustrate, comment on, decorate or attack those words. Since he finished the first edition in 1973, various volumes have been published and he has gradually replaced his original pages with new versions. Anyway, I wondered if there was much about the project on the internet and, lo and behold, I found Humument.com, Phillips' rather slick and informative site, including a slide show of the complete 4th Edition.

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