True Patriot Love by Joyce Wieland
With this manifestation of True Patriot Love—created to accompany her same-titled exhibition—Wieland joined other artists of the 1960s and 1970s who made one-of-a-kind books, or multiple-edition bookworks, that played with the form, appearance, and purpose of the conventional book.
Here Wieland uses a Canadian government publication about arctic flowers—an official-looking document with a deep-burgundy binding and embossed gold writing. On top of the original content that consists of scientific prose, simple line drawings of botanical specimens, and a few maps, Wieland overlays photographs and textual material for a collage-like result. She also affixes images to the pages of the book by stitching them together so that the threads remain visible.
Ultimately the entire book was re-photographed, printed, and sold in the guise of an exhibition catalogue. Some practical material related to the exhibition is tucked into a sleeve at the back of the bookwork, but otherwise it is clearly not a catalogue. Some photographs refer to artworks in the exhibition, but these are often blurry, partial views, or else the images are jumbled together.
This bookwork comes from the collection of the Embassy Cultural House and comes with all of the inserts.
