True Patriot Love, 1971

Photograph of an open book, made by Joyce Wieland, showing a spread of black and white photographs. On the left-hand page are photocopied fragments of text in several small frames arranged with paperclips overtop illustrations of different leaves. On the right-hand page is a photograph of a trail of footprints in snow leading into a forest.

Joyce Wieland, True Patriot Love, 1971, bookwork, 25 x 17 cm, published by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

With this manifestation of True Patriot Love—created to accompany her same-titled exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada—Wieland joined other artists of the 1960s and 1970s who made one-of-a-kind books, or multiple-edition bookworks, that played with the form, appearance, and purpose of the conventional book.


Although the exhibition was colourful and humorous, the black and white imagery of Wieland’s bookwork leaves a very different impression. Fragments of writing appear and trail off. The land is regarded as a kind of palimpsest, criss-crossed by various voices, images, and texts.

Gallery

True Patriot Love - Art Canada