Description:
“UNCOVERED: Not Judging by the cover” is a multimedia interactive project and site specific installation that explores cultural codes, archetypes of heroines and heroes, as well as notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ through the narrative hooks (first lines) found in Romance novels.

Background:
While in residency at The Wassaic Project, Canonge discovered boxes of discarded paperback novels without their illustrated covers, after reading a few of them he was inspired by the revealing opening sentences, and spent a few weeks cataloguing them.  Using the hooks as his only reference, the artist created a system based on narrative clichés about love, marriage, deception, parenting, desire, lust, passion,  and even same sex undertones that he was able to capture and/or recreate.

For the project’s premiere presentation, Canonge has transformed the entire 6th Floor of Maxon Mills Gallery where new-media elements are combined with traditional installation techniques highlighting the books and their narrative content.

Documentation:
The following is a documentation of the project during its production at The Wassaic Project www.wassaicproject.org, and its presentation at Maxon Mills Gallery in Wassaic, NY in August 2010.