Book Art By Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen's color photographs, also at Toale, are witty and laugh-outloud funny. In contrast to Martin's oeuvre, they have the depth of a penny. Even so, they're so clever and beautifully printed, they're hard not to love. Allen takes dime-store novels, slices out pieces of their illustrated covers, and bends those slivers into three-dimensional action. For instance, "Stacked" has a woman wearing only a blanket and a come-hither look reclining atop a stack of paperbacks. In ''Bookend," the slain cowboy from the cover of one book sprawls on the ground before the gunslinger bent
from the cover of another. It's pulp fiction, reinvigorated.