One Picture Book Two #37 : Portent

First edition of One Picture Book Two #37 : Portent by Tanya Marcuse. Small format hardback in as new condition. Limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print that has been signed by the artist. In addition, each book contains a letterpress print with an excerpt from the 16th century Augsburg Book of Miracles, translated, typeset and printed by the artist's son Jacob Romm at Letter and Spirit Press.

About

Portent visualizes phenomena that defy the laws of nature by staging fantastical scenes in swamps, rivers, and orchards near the artist's home in the Hudson Valley. Working without digital special effects in all seasons, weathers, and times of day, Tanya Marcuse photographs golden snakes entwined around tree branches, mysterious blue fire and blood-red snow, ice-encased apples, and other ‘marvels’ which testify to the presence of the extraordinary within plain sight. Photography often walks a thin line between fact and fiction, or dwells in a realm where the two cannot be distinguished;  Marcuse's work embraces this ambiguity, and invites viewers into an expanded sense of the possible, the believable, and even the real. 

Drawing from Part II of a larger project titled Book of Miracles, Portent is in conversation with the 16th century Augsburg Wunderzeichenbuch, an illustrated compendium of biblical, astronomical, and apocalyptic wonders and omens. Marcuse began Book of Miracles during the lockdown at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic; the project has unfolded during wildfires, extreme temperatures, and great political and social upheaval, and reflects the increasing strangeness and instability of our world.