This striking, oversized book, designed to evoke encyclopedias, is a highly creative amalgam of collage with a political bent and poetry. From 2011 to 2012, American artist Mel Chin (b. 1951) extracted all of the images from a twenty-five-volume set of Funk & Wagnall's Universal Standard Encyclopedia (ca. 1953-56) and began visually re-editing. Thousands of images rendered by photomechanical reproduction that served a populist, mid-century encyclopedia are reconfigured with 21st-century hindsight and idiosyncratic connections that convey social and artistic commentaries. Surrealism, humor, sarcasm, politics, history, and beauty permeate these sometimes raucous, often confounding, but consistently stunning images. Over 500 black-and-white collages are accompanied by twenty-five poems, one per encyclopedia volume, commissioned by Chin and author Nick Flynn specifically for this publication. Writers range from the well-known to the surprising. The Funk & Wag from A to Z offers mischievous fun with pointed commentary and hilarity. Distributed for The Menil Collection

The folk heritage of all regions, cultures, and peoples is well represented in the survey articles and entries

Each volume deals with a different subject, such as astronomy, holidays, machines, clothing, transportation, and other scientific subjects. Uses questions and answer format.

Organized thematically, this book tells the story of the European encyclopedia from 1650 to the present.

Includes Part 1, Number 2: Books and Pamphlets, Including Serials and Contributions to Periodicals (July - December)