Modified hardcover book with dust jacket in cloth-lined box
11 ¾ x 9 ¼ x 6 ⅛ inches
Edition of 13 + 3 AP
Signed & Numbered
$6,000
Some Basic Problems of Re-Gifting is an edition of altered hardcover copies of Samuel Beckett’s Stories and Texts for Nothing (Grove Press, 1967) housed in a custom cloth-lined box with insert. The modifications create an intimate and provocative reflection on publishing and engagement with the book as an object. Each of the edition of thirteen sculptures is signed and numbered on the title page.
[A rectangular open box sits next to the hardcover book Stories and Texts for Nothing by Samuel Beckett, both against a white background. The green box lies open, exposing a blue interior with a rectangular cutout for the book to be placed in. A yellow ribbon functions as a pull-tab.]
On the inside of the dust jacket, a typewritten text by Pope.L encapsulates the work:
The Best book
Can only be
Entertained----
Never entered.
Title is foyer.
Table of content--
Peephole.
Year of publication
A shadow---
On the other side
Of that peepshow--
Beginning on the first chapter page and continuing to the back cover, the contents of the book are glued together to form a block with the title pages remaining loose. In a nod to the displacement of the protagonists in these stories, the bottom corners of pages 75-92 are torn out and adhered to the lid of the outer box. The void resulting from the missing corners is filled with a removable insert, painted red on the edges.
[A green rectangular box against a white background. The lid and base of the box meet in the center, and a small bit of torn paper is glued on top.]
[A black cloth-lined hardcover book is closed, with the verso of its dustjacket splayed open to the right, revealing a typewritten poem. The text reads: "The Best book / Can only be / Entertained---- / Never entered. / Title is foyer. / Table of content-- / Peephole. / Year of publication / A shadow--- / On the other side / Of that peepshow--"]
[A book bound in black fabric, standing upright, showing the first few pages. The front dust jacket blurb is visible, folding back towards the camera, but it is partially cut off, ending each line of text abruptly. A small red insert pokes out of the book midway through, as if carved out of several pages.]
[A book open to its title page, showing Stories & Texts for Nothing by Samuel Beckett in Serif font. An abstract black-and-white illustration is on the opposite page, and Pope. L's signature stretches across both pages, dated 2019. The edition number, 7/13, is written below.]
[The lower half of the book Stories and Texts for Nothing by Samuel Beckett is seen in profile, laying on its side, against a white background. A small section of the middle of the book is cut out at the bottom corner, and a cardboard insert, painted red on its edge, is placed within this crevice.]
It's a blind box made by the blind for the blind in the blind with my hands blind behind my back, this this this is the situation.
