SPECK: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things

Buchanan-Smith, Peter

ISBN 10: 1568982976 / ISBN 13: 9781568982977

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, U.S.A., 2001

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 108847

Bibliographic Details

• Title: SPECK: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1568982976
• ISBN 13: 9781568982977
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good -
• Dust Jacket Condition: None Issued
• Seller catalogs:
  • Photography
  • art

About this title

Synopsis

In Speck, Peter Buchanan-Smith, Art Director of the New York Times Op-Ed page, asks artists, designers, lawyers, writers, collectors, and photographers to explore our obsessions with the small objects that loom large in our everyday lives.To wit: Maira Kalman empties people's pocketbooks; Nicholas Blechman and Jesse Gordon trace the history of the oldest piece of dust; David Horrowitz catalogs manhole covers; and Peter Buchanan-Smith unearths a 1966 high school yearbook and transcribes the inscriptions ("To a real sweet and cute guy with a great personality. Remember English III").Speck also shows how "ordinary" people can fascinate as much as "ordinary" objects: an interview with shoe shiner Harry Kitt, Manhattan's last practitioner of the dry-shine, photographs taken by a blind man on a sight-seeing tour, and a barber's extensive collection of earth, water, and air from around the world ask us to re-think our assumptions about the commonplace.

About the Author

Peter Buchanan-Smith is Art Director of the New York Times Op-Ed page.