Tuesday 23 December 2014

The Library and the Damage Done

Malicious Damage
The Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton
Ilsa Colsell
Donlon Books, London, 2013 

From the blurb:
"In 1962 John (Joe) Orton and Kenneth Halliwell were charged with, "larceny, malicious damage and willful damage," involving hundreds of books in the Islington Library's collection. Over the previous three years the pair had been stealing these books, removing thousands of illustrations and either using them to create alternative dust jackets for other books (which were then returned quietly to the library's shelves), or pasting them directly into a large collage spanning the interior walls of their flat. The reconfigured dust jackets were part of a decade of often shared creative endeavor. Malicious Damage looks closely at the collaged dust jackets still remaining within the archive at Islington Local History Centre and focuses on the early collaborative nature of Orton and Halliwell's relationship."


Interior wall collage in the Noel Road flat








Joe in cap

Kenneth in wig



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