Tom Phillips

This autumn, esteemed artist, poet, composer and leading cultural figure Tom Phillips will be displaying a selection of digital and print works from his celebrated project A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel. The book is one of the best known and loved 20th Century artists' books and is regarded as a seminal classic of postmodern art. This is the first UK exhibition of A Humument in seven years, with the exhibition at the Saison Poetry Library being the first to explore the new digital incarnation the project has taken on in recent years. A Humument is a long-standing and continually evolving artistic work which Phillips first began in 1966 and is still being revised and revisited today. Phillips has worked on the project for most of his life and is currently on the fifth edition of A Humument. By painting, collaging and applying cut-up techniques over the original pages of the book, he obscures most of the text leaving only a few carefully selected words visible. He has embraced technological advances and how they can develop the project by creating an interactive app version and a USB version of that when played, twins two pages side by side and is accompanied with a reading by the artist which brings out the poetic, lyrical quality of the text. Both of these digital evolutions of the original project will be on display in the exhibition, with all five print editions of A Humument, including rare early edition, also available to view alongside some of the artist's tweets. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see examples of the work in progress, with some of the pages of the book shown from their early workings to completed versions.