First published in paperback in 2011, Erica Baum’s (born 1961) much-acclaimed Dog Ear is now reissued in a beautiful hardcover edition with a wraparound poster cover. The concept of Dog Ear is simple and straightforward: dog-eared pages of mass-market paperbacks are photographed to isolate the small diagonally bisected squares or rectangles of text. The photographs are formally quite neutral and sedate--cursorily reminiscent of Albers’ Homage to the Square series--but the text also demands attention and is what allows or coaxes the viewer to linger. In his introduction to the book, Kenneth Goldsmith asks: “Do we see them or do we read them? If we choose to read them, how should we read? Across the fold? Through it? Around it? If we choose to look at Baum’s pictures, how should we see them? As artistic photographs? Documentation? Text art?”

Introduction by: Kenneth Goldsmith
Afterword by: Béatrice Gross