Pathologist book presentation
Gijs Assmann
My father is a retired pathological anatomist.
A pathologist is a doctor who has specialized in the study of morphological changes and deviations in tissue. With living persons such analysis is performed on biopsy samples (for the analysis of pathological processes), while for those who have died it is carried out on tissues collected by autopsy (to determine the cause of death).
I regard the methodology of the pathologist as a metaphor for my modus operandi as an artist. By filleting the innards and probing under the skin for deviations, disorders, obsessions and undesirabilities, I try to uncover what we prefer not to hear or would prefer to keep hidden. Besides revealing corporeal abnormalities in the literal sense, my work also addresses ethical and moral aberrations in a figurative sense. My father’s interest in the divergent also extends beyond his professional domain. His bookcase contains a large collection of books about the Second World War to enable him to understand ‘the great evil’ of the twentieth century.
Pathologist is a documentation of the books my father has collected about Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.
Euro 25,00-
ISBN/EAN 978 90 72532 08 4
Concept: Gijs Assmann
Lithograpghy: Paul Kooiker
Printing and binding: Wilco Amersfoort
Publishing: Van Zoetendaal
Distribution: Idea Books Amsterdam
Published by Van Zoetendaal, Amsterdam, 2010
Financial support: The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture