For me the most striking thing about seeing Torture of Women reproduced in a book is how it calls attention to the idea of scale in Spero’s work in a few ways. First, there is the curious sensation that the work seems bigger by seeing it together in a smaller format—more specifically, the epic qualities of each actual “room” the physical work would be in when exhibited are magnified since we see all of the panels together in the book. Second, by making the pieces “smaller” in book form, the intimate scale of the book merges (in the mind of the reader) with the notion of the “epic” to create a quality which for I myself would identify as mythic. Interesting given Spero’s dependence on mythical imagery, and for me, the mythic quality is far more effective in the book than in the actual installations (where the political seems to me to be less transformed).
—Joe Biel, artist
