Pictorial Atlas of a Girl Who Cut a Library Into Pieces

This two-volume publication presents 300 recently realized collages by Czech artist Eva Kotatkova (born 1982). This new body of work is presented as having been compiled from an imaginary schoolbook from the 1980s, when the artist was growing up in Prague, under the totalitarian regime of that decade. The images--which often feature drawn embellishments by Kotatkova--largely consist of children playing games or interacting with various other collaged components, such as anatomical parts, or being manipulated as puppets. Kotatkova thus dramatizes relationships between people, ideas and objects in elaborate psycho-physical dramas redolent of the writings of Franz Kafka or Miroslav Holub. Interspersed among the collages are installation photographs and related documentation. Kotatkova studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, and was acclaimed in The Guardian (UK) as a highlight of the 2013 Venice Biennale (The Encyclopedic Palace). Note that that text on the rear of the black volume is printed upside down.