Wax & jardins

A kind of imaginary city-in-a-book dreamt up by Spanish artist Alicia Framis, Wax and Jardins brings together 28 artists, architects, and writers -- including Mariko Mori, Otto Berchem, and members of MVRDV, among many others -- in order to examine mental and physical loneliness, especially within the context of urban life and the urban landscape. The book looks into the strange dissociating effect of contemporary life, from Richard Billingham's photographs of his alcoholic father smiling drunkenly into the camera to Mori's futuristic miseen-scene to Phillipe Terrier Hermann's pictures of lone office workers isolated in their pristine chambers. Part artist's book, part collection of found images and part exhibition, Wax and Jardins is a moving and original exploration of the somber and melancholy underbelly of the age of information.