Leda Black

One Strange Night at the Hotel Hermann-Utica 

“Why do they keep looking at me like that?” asks Mona Lisa. (Excerpt from One Strange Night at the Hotel Hermann-Utica)

Printed using the four-color process offset-press and letterpress, One Strange Night at the Hotel Hermann-Utica is a three-dimensional carousel structure with five double-page pop-outs. It is a nested accordion fold book telling of dreams. The hotel in the title refers to Utica, a decaying post-industrial town in upstate New York. Hermeneutics (Hermann) is the science of interpretation. The book is filled with both strange and familiar characters, including Sigmund Freud, a couch where Cary Grant once sat, a flying cigar, a Barbie doll dressed up like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and a telephone insect.

Press: Palabra Press
Date: 2002
Number and Edition: 23 of 275
Size: 5.5” x 9.25”