Robert Mapplethorpe

National Galleries of Scotland

2006   |  300 × 245mm   |  104pp

Exhibition Prints. Reproductions in books of paintings or sculpture can never be more than that: representations in two-dimensions of a three-dimensional reality. However photography is a different matter – the best reproductions of photographs are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The images in this book were superbly reproduced by Die Keure in Bruges, my printer of choice for the best part of a decade. The design process was akin to a game of Pelmanism: print outs of the images in the show were shuffled and paired up in groups, sometimes matching, sometimes contrasting. It was gratifying to see, when the time came for the exhibition to be hung, how many of these pairings were retained.