Cover Version
Jonathan Monk
‘For me, it's like buying gifts for myself and some are really fantastic: occasionally I am
really amazed by what I have bought when it arrives, as often the catalogue description
does not do justice to the physical object itself.’

‘Jonathan Monk is an artist who loves other artists. His work draws on oblique autobiographical
references and personal anecdotes together with art historical strategies and legacies to
express a critical camaraderie in his subject. Cover Version features a selection of seminal
publications from Monk's extensive collection of artists' books.

Sol Le Witt, Lawrence Weiner and Ed Ruscha are represented side by side to form a cogent
series, which presents a contemporary investigation into materiality and the problems of
signification in conceptual art publishing. An integral section of Cover Version is a transcribed
telephone conversation between Jonathan Monk and Seth Siegelaub, which unfolds and
discusses their mutual obsession with book making and collecting whilst speculating on the
nature of the object. This 'collectable' book also has three different covers designed with its
monetary value in euros, dollars and pounds, a direct reference to Lawrence Weiner's
1968 publication 'Statements'.’

Text from Book Works website.

Cover Version is published by Book Works;
printed offset in an edition of 1,000 copies in full colour, 138 pages, soft cover, wire stitched.
With a text by Jonathan Monk and Seth Siegelaub.
Designed by Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, 197 x 158 mm. 2004
ISBN 978 1 870699 74 7
www.bookworks.org.uk/asp/detail.asp?uid=book_66BE428E-1512-4A15-B72E-149CD4175345&sub=past
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