VISHNU CREW STEWS VINDALOO ANEW

[New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1990].. Aluminum and paper construction, contained in 16mm film canister (24 cm diameter), with printed labels on and inside the upper lid. Fine. Copy #35 of an edition planned to consist of 74 copies. Signed by Bartalos, and by Dikko Faust and Esther K. Smith, principals of the press. The construction contains four accordion-fold booklets, letterpress printed on handmade, Khadi jute paper. Each is bound between aluminum covers, which are die-cut into the profile shapes of a cat, duck, crocodile and man's head. They're attached with nuts and bolts to a circular, revolving disk, hinged to a die-cut figure, in an allusion to multi-headed conceptions of Hindu deities. The whole, when folded, is then inserted into the felt-lined film canister, calculated as an ode to Bollywood. "I was in India on this trip with my college roommate, and I was really struck by the industrialization and the modernization of India, juxtaposed with the traditional aspects of it ... It's such an extrasensory experience being in India, and I wanted to express that in this book. ... Each of the heads tell a story and how the industrialization is changing India very, very fast" - the author/artist quoted in the context of an interview. At the time of cataloguing, the publisher's website and catalogue indicate a single copy of the work is available at $5000.