It goes without saying that Alexandra Grant loves books — and she’s had the great pleasure of making several catalogs as well as artist books that have allowed her the opportunity to experiment with new ways of working. Her first artist book, Ode to Happiness (2011), was a collaboration with actor and writer Keanu Reeves and famed publisher Gerhard Steidl. Reeves wrote the text, Grant illustrated it in washy sumi inks, and Steidl figured out how to reproduce the original exactly. Songs of Maldoror (2012) was a free publication made in conjunction with the LACMA show “Drawing Surrealism.” Grant illustrated the text of Comte de Lautréamont’s gothic novel “Songs of Maldoror,” a book that deeply influenced many Surrealist artists. In 2014, Grant worked with the Polk County Historical Society in rural Nebraska to illustrate a story local to the community, the grasshopper infestation of 1872. And lastly, Shadows, Grant’s second collaboration with Reeves (and Steidl!) will be published in 2015. It includes texts by Reeves and Grant’s first published photographic works.
Images: The covers of Ode To Happiness (2011) and Songs of Maldoror (2012)