Published August 14, 2014
St. Benedict’s Literary Institute
College of Saint Benedict
Benedicta Arts Center
37 South College Ave
St. Joseph, MN 56374
“It is always tricky, the question whether to read an author’s work in light of his life or not.”
–Anne Carson
The Albertine Workout is collaboration between artist Kim Anno and author Anne Carson. The book combines 41 pages of text and 16 photogravure images exploring the life and times of Proust’s character Albertine, the unique and unforgettable “captive” from Book V of Remembrances of Things Past. Albertine may or may not have been based on a real person in Proust’s life, his erstwhile chauffeur, Alfred Agostinelli. There is a deep, sweet pathos in the unknowable relation between these two beloveds, with Proust in between.
Kim Anno swore on “pain of death” not to illustrate the text. There is a page of the image of a torn tweed suit, a fire red velvet diagonal fold, some green plant fronds, two portraits, and a series of folds, wrinkles and cuts in what appear to be pages of a book. One is never sure if the cuts are fragmented or the whole. The resulting visceral book is sumptuous, provocative, and terse.
The Albertine Workout is an artists’ book written by poet Anne Carson, with images by Kim Anno. The photogravure images were printed by Unai San Martin on Hanemuhle Copperplate paper, at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California. The text pages were letterpress printed at One Crow Press at the College of St. Benedict by Anna Boyer. The clamshell box was created by Jana Pullman of Western Slope Bindery.
The Albertine Workout was published August 15, 2014, by the Literary Arts Institute at the College of S. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. There are 40 copies in the edition.
For information on acquiring the book, please contact:
Mark Conway, [email protected], T +1 323 363 5399
Kim Anno, [email protected], T +1 510 847 4745
See more images here.
