Justine Kurland Creates 116 Collages by Cutting Up Male Photographers' Books in SCUMB MANIFESTO

Photographer Justine Kurland has produced 116 collages by systematically cutting up photobooks by male photographers from her personal library, reassembling the fragments on or inside the empty book covers. This project, titled SCUMB MANIFESTO: Society for Cutting Up Men's Books, was directly inspired by Valerie Solanas's radical 1967 SCUM Manifesto, which advocated for the elimination of men. Solanas famously shot Andy Warhol at The Factory on June 3, 1968, over a dispute involving her play Up Your Ass. Kurland's process involved snipping and slicing images beyond recognition, then compiling them into a nameless mass of body parts, landscapes, and signs. The resulting work omits all male photographers' names, though some source material is hinted at through titles like Los Alamos Revisited, America by Car, and The Animals. Recognizable visual cues include the wood-panelled rooms from Stephen Shore's American Surfaces and Victorian girl portraits from Reflections in a Looking Glass. The publication includes five texts, ranging from Renee Gladman's literary prose to Marina Chao's essay on feminist collage history, alongside a contribution from Kurland herself. Published by Mack, the softcover book is priced at £60. The project is framed as an act of catharsis, echoing Solanas's critique that mere withdrawal is insufficient and that active disruption—'fucking-up'—is necessary.