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Drop Dead Gorgeous : Home

Artists' Books
Chantl Zakari
Art Library Rare Books Collection: N 8223 .Z34 2021 box 19.1

"Drop Dead Gorgeous is a visual book comprised of scientific and editorial illustrations of the Covid-19 virus sourced online during April, May and June, 2020. This second edition which came out in January 2021, includes images of the vaccine promising hope for the end of the pandemic. In the style of colorist painting, the book sequence reveals the tension between the seductive aesthetics of the picture and its deadly pandemic effect. While scientific images transform into editorial illustrations, the book gains momentum building a narrative toward a sci-fi ending. The second edition includes images of social inequities brought out by the pandemic and the discovery of vaccines. Like photographs made of the Kennedy assassination, the Challenger disaster, and the terror of 9/11, the iconic imagery of Covid-19 collected in Drop Dead Gorgeous is informed by a world wide visual lexicon specific to this moment." — Colophon.