HAWKINS, Richard
My Own Personal Bess

“In this project I’ve overlaid reproductions of Bess’s paintings onto the pages of [Michael Ennis’ article from 1982] “His Name Was Forrest Bess” and cut windows to reveal snippets of text that would’ve been encouraging to the fledging little bookish fag that I was but no doubt raised a few eyebrows among the rest of Texas Monthly’s readership. I’ve left in a few of the attending advertisements, thinking they might give readers a sense of an early 1980s Texas demographic.”
—Richard Hawkins

An artists’ book by Richard Hawkins, that proposes a series of collages that pay homage to the late Texas-born artist Forrest Bess, plus a short essay. It was published in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition of Bess’ work at Fridericianum, Kassel, in 2020.

Published by Koenig Books / Fridericianum, 2020
Design by Petra Hollenbach & Christopher Müller
Artists' Books / Queer Culture