Tom Phillips - ACE063.2

Peckham Rye, London. Tom Phillips’s VO talking about finding second-hand copy of W. H. Mallock’s novel, A Human Document (1892). Phillips explains how he used the book to produce short poems or groups of words that he liked, cancelling out parts of the text with drawings and patterns, using parts of the publisher’s lists as material for collage, painting, etc. The result of his work is called A Humument, and includes copies of a Cezanne landscape, a self-portrait, and so on. Phillips talks about "bill toge", the hero of his book, who now appears throughout his book, the theme of which is unrequited love with "a glimmer of hope". Phillips talks about the book – an inexhaustible source – which he started using in 1966 and is still working with ten years later. He’s used other copies of the book to make related works, including a series of paintings called The Quest for Irma (1973), and a poster for the National Theatre (1975). Phillips talks about being "a borrower", using ideas and images from outside himself. Part of the book showing himself and his "unwitting collaborator" Mallock. Poems.