At first glance, the book could appear as a monograph : the 200 spreads appear to show images of Closky’s works. However, the attention is quickly raised by the titles and the sub-texts, which convey a feeling of strangeness. Below images, references are made to Claude Monet, Claude Debussy, Christian Dior, Rasputin, Sean Connery, Harley-Davidson or the San Francisco Giants…

The book is actually a print-out of a phishing website (« Blackywall ») that has appropriated Claude Closky’s official website images (www.closky.info). The « critiques » are algorithmically generated in order to attract Internet audience through a heavy use of keywords, yielding with texts that only relate distantly to Closky‘s work. So as to correct the numerous errors and provide the reader with a reliable monograph, the artist has inserted a loose page that gives proper infos about the works shown in the book. « Blackywall by Sihab Baik » thus offers a new take on appropriation with a « Printed Web » angle, and a bit of humor.

(From the publisher)