MIKE AND THE MODELWORKERS. 2008. DELUXE EDITION. ONE OF 40.

Koln: Salon Verlag,2008
Original clamshell-box, overall 30.5 x 22.5 x 8cm content of a hardback book, ex-libris bookplate and lead model cement mixer multiple. One of a series of such books where the artist was invited to select a book of special importance to her and to design a new dustjacket for it.it was then published under her own name as a ‘reprint’. The artist here chose ‘Mike and the Modelmakers’ by M. Sasek, originally published in 1970. The London studio of Whiteread lay opposite the company Lesney, who during the 1970’s was the toy manufacturer of the Matchbox car.

Whiteread’s new dust-jacket is a photographic illustration of the Lesney factory.

The book is still in its original shrinkwrap. Issued loose with the book is Whiteread’s ex-libris bookplate (flat-packed colour printed cardboard box for the matchbox cement-mixer), designed to be detached and pasted into the book.

This example is one of 40 deluxe copies, with a solid lead cast of the cement-mixer, stamp-numbered and initialled on its base. This model is wrapped in a small protective woollen blanket which has a stitched label carrying the same numbering. The bookplate is also signed in pen by Whiteread and numbered from the edition of 40.

All fine in like box.