Amazing salesman's album ca. 1900 of "Planet Junior" farm equipment. Each crisp brown-toned image is sharply silhouetted against a pale blue background. A label with the precise yet poetic name of the piece of machinery is on the page opposite. On one level these functional objects reveal lovely forms, anticipating some of Marcel Duchamp's dry and precise delineations of machinery. The whole book of them anticipates some post-modern catalog-like art books such as those by Ed Ruscha. Also fascinating is the naming of the precise function of each, such as the "Double Celery Hiller" or the "Four-Row Sugar Beet Horse Hoe." There are 42- 6" x 9" bound glossy gelatin-silver prints, backed by linen, one to a page, plus 3 loose pages. (Larry Gottheim)
