Such Things I Do Make Myself More Attractive To You
Terence Koh, Such Things I Do Make Myself More Attractive To You
Softcover/boxed, 48 pp., offset 1/1, 6 x 8 x 1.5 inches
three booklets, one unique sculpture, black jelly beans
Edition of 200
Published by Peres Projects
out of print
Synopsis: Koh’s artists’ books and editions are integral to his exploration of the intersection between death and desire. Such Things I Do To Make Myself More Attractive To You amps up the sense of impending cataclysmic consummation. Each of the edition of 200 consists of a black box containing three booklets resting on a bed of black jellybeans, along with a unique ebony-colored, organically-shaped sculpture of black plaster and black glitter, and a black-on-black colophon card with a unique signed “drawing” on the reverse, individually charred around the edges. The first of the three pamphlets presents tiny ghostly black and white photographs, internet images of attractive young men, each centered in a sea of black. Each page of the second pamphlet presents a burn mark, which has in turn been burned with a cigarette, creating a series of negatives spaces surrounded by brown ashy tracing and reptilian bubbles. The last booklet, holding only a single tipped-in image, frames the overwhelming drive towards a loss of individuality though a prism of suicidal impulses.