Michael Snow's 1975 Photobook 'Cover to Cover' Reissued, Exploring Perception Through Dual Perspectives

Michael Snow's photobook 'Cover to Cover', originally published in 1975, has been reissued in a 2020 softcover facsimile by Primary Information and Light Industry for $30. The Canadian artist, now in his nineties, created the work as a book artwork that employs simultaneous photography from two opposing angles, allowing each page to depict different sides of a scene, such as a door and the man behind it. This technique echoes his 1974 film 'Two Sides to Every Story', which used two cameramen filming each other across a room, with projections on opposite sides of an aluminium sheet showing a woman walking and spraypainting a green circle on Perspex. 'Cover to Cover' invites readers to flip through it forwards or backwards, with pages transforming into doubled representations, like a blank page or a brick wall, while revealing its own making by including photographers capturing each other. The book functions as a meditation on everyday actions like sitting and walking, emphasizing how perception is shaped rather than what is depicted. Snow's structuralist approach combines humor with a focus on medium limitations, using the photobook to explore bodily and existential themes through mundane visuals. The reprint serves as a time-capsule reminder of print's unique properties amid contemporary digital formats like ebooks and audiobooks.