Dont Leaves Relax Leaves (Special Edition, 2015)
A special edition drawing and collaged torn pages from the book Now Leaves by Michael Dean, encapsulated in a clear perspex box.
297 x 420mm, perspex box size 306 x 429 x 15mm
Edition of 10, plus 3 artist’s proofs
Signed and numbered by the artist
Accompanied by a numbered copy of the book with corresponding missing pages.

Standard Price £600
Supporters price* £540
*Please note that the Supporters price is available to those who support Book Works via the Readers Club and Supporters scheme. For more information how to support Book Works please click here.

This edition has been produced on occasion of Now Leaves by Michael Dean co-published by Book Works and Wysing Arts Centre in association with de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam and Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp, with additional support from Herald St., London, Supportico Lopez, Berlin and MendesWood DM, São Paulo.

About the work:
The pages of Now Leaves fall loosely apart to reveal dense black graphics – letters shaped as tongues, twisted to form barely legible words. Each page inscribed, playing on repetition, the word ‘leaves’ repeatedly tongued. The successive pages form statements, occasionally benign – it starts LEAVES FOR LEAVES – but as the pages turn a more visceral violence exudes from the pages – SLAVE LEAVES HAPPY LEAVES, FUCKING LEAVES LOST LEAVES KILL LEAVES, BLOODY LEAVES POSITION LEAVES. Whilst visually arresting, the experience of reading Dean’s book reduces reading to the physical intimacy of your own mouth; as you to attempt to read the barely decipherable words to take pleasure in the babble, you feel your eyes contort as your own tongue does trying to shape the words, tempted to twist, stretch or replicate the graphic tonguing on the page.

About the artist:
Michael Dean was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, 1977. Solo exhibitions include: The Introduction of Muscle, Arnolfini, Bristol (2013); thoughts Cubitt, London (2012); Government, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2012); State of being apart, Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany (2011); Our Daily Permanence, Nomas Foundation, Rome (2010). He is currently showing new work Qualities of Violence at de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, 24 January – 8 March 2015, and has a forthcoming show at Extra City Kuntshal, Antwerp in March. In the autumn of 2013 he was in-residence at Wysing Arts Centre and in 2014 was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Visual Artist.

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