REVIEW BY CLARK ALLEN
It would seem logical that when attempting to create a book that is not a book, or perhaps a book that is beyond a book, then the model of one of the earliest books, and certainly the earliest book to truly transcend itself, must be used as a point of reference. The traditional Bible, with its depictions of piousness, madness, divinity, violence, juxtaposition and contradiction, could easily be claimed a foundation of (our shaky) Western Society. While mirroring it in spirit precisely, Broomberg and Chanarin's Holy Bible serves as an object that is less a book than a mirror; and a mirror being held to a mirror at that.
Holy Bible draws inspiration from the moral theory of Adi Ophir, which states that God’s depiction is best approximated in cataclysm. It also utilizes the aesthetic of Bertolt Brecht's personally annotated Bible, which he had heavily annotated and folded photographs within the pages, etc. The result is a story that is being un-written, and thus a Bible that not a scripture. By two artists, innumerable unnamed authors, and centuries of human innovation, Holy Bible is the portrait of god by Man rather than of man by God. Though one can look for hours, you'd hardly need to read a word.
Holy Bible is published and distributed by MACK.
$80 HB 768 pages, 614 color plates ISBN: 9781907946417 Pub date: June 2013
