My Pretty Pony
Barbara Kruger, Stephen King
1988
My Pretty Pony
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In his 1766 essay on Laocoön, philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famously argued that painting is a spatial art, operating in space, whereas poetry – and, by extension, fiction – is a temporal art, unfolding in ...
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My Pretty Pony
Barbara Kruger, Stephen King
1988
New York: Whitney Museum of American Art
Unpaginated [64 pages]
52 × 35 cm
Special edition of 250; signed by Stephen King and Barbara Kruger

In his 1766 essay on Laocoön, philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famously argued that painting is a spatial art, operating in space, whereas poetry – and, by extension, fiction – is a temporal art, unfolding in time. From this perspective, reading Stephen King’s short story My Pretty Pony, illustrated by Barbara Kruger, involves as much a consideration of time as it does of the relationship between verbal and visual art, encapsulated in the principle of ut pictura poesis (“as is painting, so is poetry”), and vice versa.


 


With its stainless-steel cover and embedded digital clock, which tracks the reader’s time from the moment the book is opened, My Pretty Pony is conceived as a timepiece in its own right. The publication is a self-conscious object whose illustrations and material form mirror and reinterpret the narrative. In the story, an elderly man approaching the end of his life gives his grandson, Clivey, a pocket watch, warning him of the dangers of letting time slip away. The narrative unfolds as a memento mori, a meditation on mortality, and Kruger’s visual contribution reinforces this theme. Throughout the book, nine lithographs and eight screenprints featuring horses, riders, and a stopwatch give visual form to the story’s meditation on time. Interspersed throughout the publication, Kruger’s signature overlaid words and phrases, when read together, form an aphorism: “Time ain’t got nothing to do with how fast you can count.”


 


Published in 1988, this special edition was the sixth in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s artist-and-writer series, following Dal vero (John Hollander and Saul Steinberg, 1983), Could I Ask You Something? (Lewis Thomas and Alfonso Ossorio, 1984), The View (Czesław Miłosz and Vija Celmins, 1985), Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip (Jamaica Kincaid and Eric Fischl, 1986), and Hiddenness (Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Richard Tuttle, 1987). The special edition was followed in 1989 by a trade edition of 15,000 copies.

New York: Whitney Museum of American Art
Unpaginated [64 pages]
52 × 35 cm
Special edition of 250; signed by Stephen King and Barbara Kruger

In his 1766 essay on Laocoön, philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famously argued that painting is a spatial art, operating in space, whereas poetry – and, by extension, fiction – is a temporal art, unfolding in time. From this perspective, reading Stephen King’s short story My Pretty Pony, illustrated by Barbara Kruger, involves as much a consideration of time as it does of the relationship between verbal and visual art, encapsulated in the principle of ut pictura poesis (“as is painting, so is poetry”), and vice versa.

 

With its stainless-steel cover and embedded digital clock, which tracks the reader’s time from the moment the book is opened, My Pretty Pony is conceived as a timepiece in its own right. The publication is a self-conscious object whose illustrations and material form mirror and reinterpret the narrative. In the story, an elderly man approaching the end of his life gives his grandson, Clivey, a pocket watch, warning him of the dangers of letting time slip away. The narrative unfolds as a memento mori, a meditation on mortality, and Kruger’s visual contribution reinforces this theme. Throughout the book, nine lithographs and eight screenprints featuring horses, riders, and a stopwatch give visual form to the story’s meditation on time. Interspersed throughout the publication, Kruger’s signature overlaid words and phrases, when read together, form an aphorism: “Time ain’t got nothing to do with how fast you can count.”

 

Published in 1988, this special edition was the sixth in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s artist-and-writer series, following Dal vero (John Hollander and Saul Steinberg, 1983), Could I Ask You Something? (Lewis Thomas and Alfonso Ossorio, 1984), The View (Czesław Miłosz and Vija Celmins, 1985), Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip (Jamaica Kincaid and Eric Fischl, 1986), and Hiddenness (Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Richard Tuttle, 1987). The special edition was followed in 1989 by a trade edition of 15,000 copies.

DESCRIPTION

In his 1766 essay on Laocoön, philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famously argued that painting is a spatial art, operating in space, whereas poetry – and, by extension, fiction – is a temporal art, unfolding in time. From this perspective, reading Stephen King’s short story My Pretty Pony, illustrated by Barbara Kruger, involves as much a consideration of time as it does of the relationship between verbal and visual art, encapsulated in the principle of ut pictura poesis (“as is painting, so is poetry”), and vice versa.

 

With its stainless-steel cover and embedded digital clock, which tracks the reader’s time from the moment the book is opened, My Pretty Pony is conceived as a timepiece in its own right. The publication is a self-conscious object whose illustrations and material form mirror and reinterpret the narrative. In the story, an elderly man approaching the end of his life gives his grandson, Clivey, a pocket watch, warning him of the dangers of letting time slip away. The narrative unfolds as a memento mori, a meditation on mortality, and Kruger’s visual contribution reinforces this theme. Throughout the book, nine lithographs and eight screenprints featuring horses, riders, and a stopwatch give visual form to the story’s meditation on time. Interspersed throughout the publication, Kruger’s signature overlaid words and phrases, when read together, form an aphorism: “Time ain’t got nothing to do with how fast you can count.”

 

Published in 1988, this special edition was the sixth in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s artist-and-writer series, following Dal vero (John Hollander and Saul Steinberg, 1983), Could I Ask You Something? (Lewis Thomas and Alfonso Ossorio, 1984), The View (Czesław Miłosz and Vija Celmins, 1985), Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip (Jamaica Kincaid and Eric Fischl, 1986), and Hiddenness (Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Richard Tuttle, 1987). The special edition was followed in 1989 by a trade edition of 15,000 copies.

New York: Whitney Museum of American Art
Unpaginated [64 pages]
52 × 35 cm
Special edition of 250; signed by Stephen King and Barbara Kruger

In his 1766 essay on Laocoön, philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famously argued that painting is a spatial art, operating in space, whereas poetry – and, by extension, fiction – is a temporal art, unfolding in time. From this perspective, reading Stephen King’s short story My Pretty Pony, illustrated by Barbara Kruger, involves as much a consideration of time as it does of the relationship between verbal and visual art, encapsulated in the principle of ut pictura poesis (“as is painting, so is poetry”), and vice versa.

 

With its stainless-steel cover and embedded digital clock, which tracks the reader’s time from the moment the book is opened, My Pretty Pony is conceived as a timepiece in its own right. The publication is a self-conscious object whose illustrations and material form mirror and reinterpret the narrative. In the story, an elderly man approaching the end of his life gives his grandson, Clivey, a pocket watch, warning him of the dangers of letting time slip away. The narrative unfolds as a memento mori, a meditation on mortality, and Kruger’s visual contribution reinforces this theme. Throughout the book, nine lithographs and eight screenprints featuring horses, riders, and a stopwatch give visual form to the story’s meditation on time. Interspersed throughout the publication, Kruger’s signature overlaid words and phrases, when read together, form an aphorism: “Time ain’t got nothing to do with how fast you can count.”

 

Published in 1988, this special edition was the sixth in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s artist-and-writer series, following Dal vero (John Hollander and Saul Steinberg, 1983), Could I Ask You Something? (Lewis Thomas and Alfonso Ossorio, 1984), The View (Czesław Miłosz and Vija Celmins, 1985), Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip (Jamaica Kincaid and Eric Fischl, 1986), and Hiddenness (Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Richard Tuttle, 1987). The special edition was followed in 1989 by a trade edition of 15,000 copies.

MORE BOOKS

In his 1766 essay on Laocoön, philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing famously argued that painting is a spatial art, operating in space, whereas poetry – and, by extension, fiction – is a temporal art, unfolding in time. From this perspective, reading Stephen King’s short story My Pretty Pony, illustrated by Barbara Kruger, involves as much a consideration of time as it does of the relationship between verbal and visual art, encapsulated in the principle of ut pictura poesis (“as is painting, so is poetry”), and vice versa.

 

With its stainless-steel cover and embedded digital clock, which tracks the reader’s time from the moment the book is opened, My Pretty Pony is conceived as a timepiece in its own right. The publication is a self-conscious object whose illustrations and material form mirror and reinterpret the narrative. In the story, an elderly man approaching the end of his life gives his grandson, Clivey, a pocket watch, warning him of the dangers of letting time slip away. The narrative unfolds as a memento mori, a meditation on mortality, and Kruger’s visual contribution reinforces this theme. Throughout the book, nine lithographs and eight screenprints featuring horses, riders, and a stopwatch give visual form to the story’s meditation on time. Interspersed throughout the publication, Kruger’s signature overlaid words and phrases, when read together, form an aphorism: “Time ain’t got nothing to do with how fast you can count.”

 

Published in 1988, this special edition was the sixth in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s artist-and-writer series, following Dal vero (John Hollander and Saul Steinberg, 1983), Could I Ask You Something? (Lewis Thomas and Alfonso Ossorio, 1984), The View (Czesław Miłosz and Vija Celmins, 1985), Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip (Jamaica Kincaid and Eric Fischl, 1986), and Hiddenness (Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Richard Tuttle, 1987). The special edition was followed in 1989 by a trade edition of 15,000 copies.

MORE BOOKS