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Open: Twenty one photographs (book + print)

by Brian Griffin

Photographs: Brian Griffin

Text: Alexander Blair McDowell, John Antony Warwicker

Publisher: Brian Griffin Ltd.

92 pages

Pictures: 21

Year: 1986

Price: 395 €

Comments: Quarter bound hardback, bound in a yellow cloth with plain boards and with a protective card box, 25,5 x 23 cm. Language: English. 25 collector’s editions with a signed & numbered print. Condition: new.

“Open was made after the death of his father and of his close friend, the graphic designer Barney Bubbles. It serves as a memorial. You have to open the book to get to heaven, but opening it – cutting the tape and folded pages – destroys it. The book is a metaphor for life, the further we get into it, the more knowledge we gain, but the closer we are to the final end and its closure. Like all Griffin’s books, it has higher production values than the usual self-published photobooks of the period and is presented like a Japanese book, where packaging is everything. Such a concept also has a special commercial advantage, because serious book collectors are honour-bound to buy two copies – one to open and read, the other to remain closed and inviolate.”

(The Photobook: A History, vol. 2: Phaidon Press, 2004)

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look inside

Open: Twenty one photographs (book + print)

by Brian Griffin

Photographs: Brian Griffin

Text: Alexander Blair McDowell, John Antony Warwicker

Publisher: Brian Griffin Ltd.

92 pages

Pictures: 21

Year: 1986

Price: 395 €

Comments: Quarter bound hardback, bound in a yellow cloth with plain boards and with a protective card box, 25,5 x 23 cm. Language: English. 25 collector’s editions with a signed & numbered print. Condition: new.

“Open was made after the death of his father and of his close friend, the graphic designer Barney Bubbles. It serves as a memorial. You have to open the book to get to heaven, but opening it – cutting the tape and folded pages – destroys it. The book is a metaphor for life, the further we get into it, the more knowledge we gain, but the closer we are to the final end and its closure. Like all Griffin’s books, it has higher production values than the usual self-published photobooks of the period and is presented like a Japanese book, where packaging is everything. Such a concept also has a special commercial advantage, because serious book collectors are honour-bound to buy two copies – one to open and read, the other to remain closed and inviolate.”

(The Photobook: A History, vol. 2: Phaidon Press, 2004)

More books by Brian Griffin