The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Matthew Picton’s Map Sculptures of Cities Made of Books about the City

From Hunter S. Thompson to Wagner, or what Ulysses has to do with news headlines from 9/11.

By Maria Popova

As a hopeless lover of maps and cities, and even more so of books about maps and books about cities, I was instantly enthralled by the work of Oregon-based British artist Matthew Picton, whose stunning paper sculptures of cities are made of books and other textual materials related to the respective city, taking the art of book sculpture to whole new level of meta with subtle, thoughtful commentary through the selection of the specific texts.

Jerusalem created from The New Testament, The Torah, The Armenian Bible and The Koran
Photo by Ron Jaffe
Dresden in 1945, made of Wagner’s score for The Ring, 2010
Photo by Ron Jaffe
Portland created from the covers and text of the novel The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LaGuin and the DVD covers of the films Dante’s Peak and Volcano; the work has been smoked
Photo by Ron Jaffe
London in 1666, created from the book covers of The Plague Years by Daniel Defoe
Photo by Ron Jaffe
Dublin on June 16, 1904, created from text from James Joyce’s Ulysses
Photo by Ron Jaffe
Lower Manhattan created from headlines that accompanied the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and DVD covers of the film Towering Inferno and book covers of the novel The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Photo by Ron Jaffe
Las Vegas in 1972, created from texts from Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’
Photo by Ron Jaffe

If’re a fellow bibliophile with a soft spot for the intersection of cities and cartography, don’t forget these 5 essential books on maps and 7 essential books on cities.

via roomthily

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Published December 9, 2011
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https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/12/09/matthew-picton-maps-cities/
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