baby art blog

tristes vacances is the essential classic romain slocombe book - tiny in size but (for me) epic in portentousness - 15 colour plates depicting the survivors of a japanese tourist coach crash, along with medical documentation (in french) detailing their assorted fractures etc - released in 1986, the same time i was doing my own idiosyncratic and commercially nonviable graphic autopsy booklets - i was given a copy of le livre shortly after by someone making connections between our “misogynist” deviant art - also at that time i picked up a zine called casual casual which included an excellent and inspiring slocombe interview and art feature - then around 1990 someone in france had shown romain samples of my work and he got in touch (sending me another complimentary copy of tristes vacances!) - i was encouraged to become “an artist” and the rest is history - romain today can be found here

tristes vacances is long out of print (needless to say?) but not so difficult to find - it tends to crop up either at ridiculous throw-away or ridiculously exorbitant prices, depending on the disposition (artistic appreciation or lack of) of the bookseller - as i write there are four copies on abebooks priced between $9.95 and $177.07! (also copies of the more rare “l’art medical”!)