MASK is an artist’s book by Luciano Rigolinipresenting an extensive series of grilles from American cars built between 1955 and 1962, a period in which developments in engineering technology ushered in unprecedented creative possibilities in automotive design. One conspicuous trend played up the fronts of vehicles, rendering them veritable sculptures in their own right. It is this object-quality that interests Rigolini, a photographer who has paused his own photographic practice to devote his attention to reworking preexisting images. For MASK, Rigolini draws on a catalogue of spare parts, scanning images of automobile fronts, accompanied by a caption indicating the year of manufacture and sometimes the brand or model, and abstracting them for his own artistic purposes. The forms sequentially presented in his book inevitably harken back to the golden age of outsized American automobiles, the quintessential symbols of a society and an era now irremediably consigned to the past. Thanks to Edition Patrick Frey (Zurich).
330 pages, 15 cm × 20.5 cm, hardcover, Edition Patrick Frey (Zurich).