Join us for the launch of he, by Kegan McFadden and Nick Kline
he
64 pages
11” x 8.35”
Cover: paperback
Binding: perfect
Process: Riso, black
Edition: 250
978-0-9783946-9-1
$20
Images from the series, boys’ shirts, by Nick Kline
Text from the series, men, by Kegan McFadden
Published by ampersand editions, an imprint of As We Try & Sleep Press.
In an international collaboration, Canadian writer and American visual artist produce the limited edition artist book, he. McFadden’s text, men, loosely considers themes of masculinity, failure, queerness, aging, and entropy. These poems have been paired with the photographic series by Nick Kline, boys’ shirts. Kline’s imagery consists of close-cropped photographs of boys’ t-shirts. All striped shirts in various shades of black and white, with varying widths and orientation; these abstractions become a framework or barometer to compare numerous characters in their eccentricities.
Kline’s photographs of horizontal striped shirts, especially viewed in black and white, might resonate with the typical optimism portrayed in 1950s American television shows and advertisements, and he uses this filmic and photographic history to appeal to viewer’s sense of the familiar while also inviting an exploration of memory as well as notions of masculinity and its development.
McFadden’s text uses the technique of a singular pronoun, ‘he’, and purposely confuses understandings of an individual protagonist, or linear narrative, by offering the reader numerous stories of a supposed singular ‘he’ at different stages of life. From simple delusions to very real health concerns, these pieces attempt a micro/macrocosm when considering a life. They are part autobiographical and part fabrication. They are meant to allude to an index, but are purposely incomplete, offering glimpses but never the whole story.