An Exorcism: A Photo Romance
Authored by: Penny Slinger
Published by: Fulgur Press
Penny Slinger is a Los Angeles–based artist whose work investigates the feminine, the magical and the erotic. While studying at Chelsea College of Art in the late 1960s, Slinger encountered Max Ernst’s Une semaine de bonté (1934), initiating an enduring involvement with both the Surrealist movement and the medium of collage. In her first publication, 50% The Visible Woman (1971), Slinger explored the image of woman through a series of often provocative photomontage self-portraits and poetic texts. Such themes resonated keenly with the emerging feminist movement, and in 1973 Rolling Stone noted: “this book will become as important on your bookshelf as Sgt. Pepper’s is on your record rack.”
With An Exorcism: A Photo Romance, Slinger explores the feminine psyche further. Developed from a visit to Lilford Hall in 1970 with her then-partner, the filmmaker Peter Whitehead, Slinger provides us with a series of haunting images that chart a process of self-discovery and awakening that was described by Sheldon Williams as “a cascade of photo-collage imagery which has all the emergent trepidation of Hesse’s Steppenwolf.” First published in 1977 with a grant from Roland Penrose’s Elephant Foundation, the original edition has been long out of print. This new edition from Fulgur Press has been expanded with new images from the original series held in the artist’s archive and offers a previously unpublished narrative by Slinger that speaks to the personal and eternal themes of the book.
Bibliography
Hardback Edition
Publication date: 2024
Original price: £49.50
Physical Description
Dimensions: 30 x 23 cm.
Page Count: 192 pages.
Illustrative content: 188 colour printed images, with notes.
Binding
Binding: Hardback.
Paper: Premium Italian 135gsm paper.
Deluxe Edition
Publication date: 2024
Original price: £460
Number of Copies Printed: Limited to 49 copies.
Physical Description
Dimensions: 35 x 24 cm.
Page Count: 192 pages.
Illustrative content: 188 colour printed images, with notes.
Other physical details: Copies signed by the artist.
Binding
Binding: Bound in full black crushed Morocco, all edges black, mounted in custom silk solander box.
Paper: Premium Italian 135gsm paper.
Content Note
Accompanying material: Issued with a C-type variant print of the image ‘Perspective’, signed and numbered by the artist.
Other: Copies hand-made by an artisan bindery on the Welsh borders.
