Paperback
116 pages, 7” x 8.5”
ISBN 978-0-9827234-2-5
(Collection Brooklyn Museum)
Published as a book (Proteotypes 2011), the Museum of Matches acts as a “pocket museum” of images and narrative text from my Museum of Matches project, which explored the Cold War and its legacy. Both a family memoir and an interdisciplinary art project, the book draws parallels between past and present and different parts of the world, incorporating visual art, photographs, documents and artifacts. A visual record of the entire eight-year Museum of Matches project, the book opens windows into several moments in history, including the Russian Revolution and the Cold War, with a focus on understanding my father's career as a Cold War CIA operative. Museum of Matches is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.
To purchase a copy ($20) sashachav@gmail.com
Battle Pass: Revolution II, An Artists Book, (Brooklyn, NY, 2019), Edition of 3. Includes 12 Lithograph pages on folded and nested paper, loosely bound with thread. Leather case handmade by the artist with leather clasps. Dimensions in case: 8” x 8” x 2”, displayed on wall: dimensions variable.
Battle Pass – Revolution II is my limited edition artist’s book incorporating text and imagery from The Centenarian’s Story (Leaves of Grass, 1900), Walt Whitman’s poem about the Battle of Brooklyn, the first and biggest battle of the American Revolutionary War, which took place in 1776 around what is today the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY.
The book explores conflict and memory, drawing parallels between past and present as it draws attention to forgotten history. The battle, described by Whitman as a “Resolute Defeat,” is often forgotten today in the very neighborhoods where it occurred, now a post-industrial urban landscape, that is experiencing social upheaval due to rezoning. The book’s pages, folded into an X, suggest erased memory, and when displayed on the wall evoke pinned butterflies. The book’s case was inspired by Whitman’s leather carrying case.
Text excerpted from Whitman’s The Centenarian’s Story:
Give me your hand old Revolutionary
Do you hear the clank of the muskets?
In the midst of you
An encampment very old
Pouring about me here on every side
The years recede
Pavements and stately houses disappear
No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in
Battle Pass: Revolution II, An Artist’s Book was included in the 2019 exhibition “Walt Whitman’s Words: Inspiring Artists Today” at the Center for Book Arts, curated by Deirdre Lawrence. In October 2019, I took part in a panel discussion with the curator.
Battle Pass – Revolution II is a companion piece to my eponymous public art installation Battle Pass: Revolution II, commissioned by the NYC Department of Transportation Urban Art Program in 2011, and located at Smith and Bergen Streets in Brooklyn until 2020.
For more information, contact sashachav@gmail.com
Margaret Fuller - Disrupting the Fabric is a digital publication that is part of my multimedia body of visual art that responds to the life and work of the American writer Margaret Fuller (1810 - 1850). Read more about the project here
Turn the pages of the digital publication by clicking the arrow on the right. This is a slow digital experience that will take approximately 8 minutes to view.
View the digital publication here
