Elisabeth Tonnard is a dutch artist and writer who makes extraordinary books. She uses methods of appropriation; word, image combination, and sequence, although to define her practice by any single strategy or concept would be a disservice. The strength of this work lies in its ability to lead the reader into unknown territory. Tonnard’s books offer a similar pleasure to becoming lost in the language of a particular novel. There is great joy to taken in Tonnard’s slippage of language and syntax, each view seemingly has no definite destination or goal. Rarely do I see work that presents compelling ideas in such an accessible format.

While in residency at VSW Tonnard, published the artist book In this Dark Wood. The book takes its title from one possible translation of the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno:

Midway along the journey of our life

I woke to find myself in a dark wood

For I had wandered off from the straight path.

90 possible translations of the original line are presented alongside images of people walking alone at night.

The images are from the Joseph Salle collection housed at VSW, an archive of negatives compiled from the Fox Movie Flash Company. Active from the 1940s to the 1970s, Fox Movie Flash employed a team of photographers to make unsolicited portraits of people walking the streets with the intention of selling the customer their own portrait. The business is an interesting story in itself, but Tonnard’s juxtaposition creates a distinct narrative of isolation.

The experience of losing oneself in the street also occurs in Tonnard’s book, Man of the Crowd. The unbound book and exhibition is inspired by one of Poe’s short stories in which the narrator, I, finds himself enthralled with following the movements of an anonymous man through the streets of Paris. Tonnard documents her own similar experience while in Paris tracking a man in green jacket. Tonnard photographed this man for 4 minutes until she lost him in the crowd; the photographs are presented alongside a linguistic analysis of Poe’s story. In both her treament of the Poe’s text and sequential presentation of photographs from her encounter, Tonnard illustrates the condition of finding yourself lost in a world of infinite others.

For more of Elisabeth Tonnard check out her website and the group show Different Repetitions on view at Brooklyn through November 8th.