Title | Shelter |
Artist / Creator | Philip Zimmermann |
Press Name | Spaceheater Editions |
Artist's Nationality | United States |
Place of Publication | Tucson, AZ |
Publication Date | 2006-2009 |
Subject | Religion |
Process / Technique | HP Indigo |
Structure / Binding | Exposed spine sewn signatures with hard covers and a second internal accordion book. (Book within a book) |
Medium / Materials | Handcut interior windows with table to support the interior accordion-fold book |
Paper Stock | Mohawk Superfine |
Number of Pages | 52 pages |
Dimensions (WxHxD) | 8.5 x 11.25 x .375 inches |
Edition Size | Edition of 50 |
Signed & Numbered | Yes |
Shelter came out of an exploration of losing faith and questioning one of it's opposites: the process of finding faith and religion. This content of the text came out of watching my dying father, who was never religious when I was growing up, become increasingly interested in faith and salvation as he became sicker from heart disease and bone cancer. I saw the desert with it's unfriendly flora and harsh environment as a metaphor for the difficult world view that many have towards the end of their lives. The desert is also used in many religious tracts as a place for contemplation and mortification. In this work roadside shelters and evangelical gospel ministries were used as signifiers of ways and places where people look (vainly?) to relieve the stark unknowable prospects of their approaching death.
Artist Bio
PHILIP ZIMMERMANN is an artist and teacher. Since 2008 he has been a professor at the School of Art at the University of Arizona. He studied architecture and fine arts at Cornell University where he received a BFA in 1973. He earned his MFA in Photographic Studies at the The Visual Studies Workshop/SUNY Buffalo in Rochester NY in 1980. He taught at the School of Art+Design at State University of New York at Purchase outside NYC for 24 years and is a Professor Emeritus there. Although working in various media, his preferred form is the photo bookwork. He publishes his and other's work under the Spaceheater Editions imprint.