a document made by Paul Thek and Edwin Klein (3 volumes), c. 1971

Narrator: Thek made this book with Edwin Klein, a friend, photographer, and member of the artist’s co-op—the group that helped Thek to create his installations. Here, Thek and Klein attempted to capture the activity of the studio as they prepared for an exhibition. Snapshots are layered with seemingly random objects and images: ”everything that surrounded us in our daily life,” Klein explained. He photographed the assemblages against an open newspaper spread. Elisabeth Sussman describes the work’s significance.

Elisabeth Sussman: The newspaper speaks to the reality of the outerworld at the moment and the collages that appear on the newspaper speak to the inner reality of Thek's studio. And there is just generally a sense of confusion, chaos, eroticism, and surfeit of imagery, all of which go into the mood of Thek's studio and which he tries to transfer into these installations themselves. And so it captures that process in a way that nothing else we have left from Paul Thek does.

Narrator: Elsewhere in this gallery, you can see a film of the co-op creating an installation made in Lucerne, called Ark, Pyramid-Easter.