Description

A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai), 2022

The original, a transparency in a light box that is part of the permanent collection at Tate Modern, is not simply a photograph, and similarly this scale reproduction is not simply a book. Nearly a decade in the making, this collaboration between the artist and publisher responds to the challenge of how Wall's work, characterized by its synthesis of materiality and scale, could be rendered uniquely into book form.

TBW Books' A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) reproduces the image, printed from the artist's original digital montage file, on 98 unbound lightweight sheets of paper. Once installed, the sheets' gentle movements, created by localized airflow, echo the fly-away energy of the papers in the original picture. This version of the work creates a new relationship between the image and the atmosphere that it has become renowned for evoking.

With tremendous attention to printing, design, and quality of materials, this edition of only 300 copies is a conceptual achievement guided by the highest standards of bookmaking.