The year was 1946 and a murder mystery book titled “Murder in the Glass Room” is released. In that said book there is a line that says”You can never tell a book by its cover.” This is where the idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” comes from, and also where this lot come into it…

10 – Page by Page by page by page…

Made by Francesca Pastine, she cuts each magazine layer by layer by hand with an X-acto blade to reveal narrow bands of the pages within. I can only imagine the time it takes her to make each piece.

9 – Finished Effect

Francesca Pastine began to use these Art Forum magazines as her medium way back in 2008, but I don’t know what other people think, but I think they are still amazing now even 4 years later. Some art really is timeless it seems.

8 – Melting

Francesca takes the time to cut and manipulate the magazines thousands of pages to create and reveal the topography that lies within the magazine itself. So you really can’t judge that book by its cover.

7 – Tall effects

It all started apparently when she noticed her friends would hang onto these art and gossip magazines because of their glossy nature, and to be fair even I know a few people that love to hang onto that type of magazine.

[adinserter block=”7″]

6 – Display

Francesca says that she was intrigued by the square format of the magazine and in particularly the bloated art market that was reflected within that one-inch thickness, so she began to ask friends for their unwanted magazines.

5 – The art River Flows

She starts with the covers, then cuts, bends, manipulates, pulls, and digs her way through each page revealing a visceral topography of art trends within. Then the finished worked becomes an unsolicited collaboration with the magazine and the cover artist.

4 – Draining

I am not really sure what it means, but she eschews glues other manipulations that change the inherent character of the magazines. Sounds like very hard work no matter what it is.

3 – River Through

The magazine its self is a New York publication that was founded in San Francisco in the early 60s and was very popular. But the art market has highly critical of it and people stopped reading it, but still clung onto the magazine themselves.

[adinserter block=”8″]

2 – Drip Dry

Not only does she make these amazing pieces herself, but she is also very active in the arts community with helping out on various large-scale art installations.

1 – The Detail

I will leave you with this quote line from Francesca Pastine herself: “Through physically intervening with these familiar icons of the art establishment, I suffuse the inanimate with emotional power, creating a palpable complexity of form and information.”