Batia Suter

Batia Suter’s Parallel Encyclopedia #1 serves as the foundational cornerstone of her ongoing inquiry into image circulation, recontextualization, and visual syntax. Originally published in 2007 and issued in a 2021 reprint, this monumental compilation gathers over a thousand found photographs, technical diagrams, scientific illustrations, and historical reproductions culled from printed encyclopedias and reference books. By stripping these secondary images of their original captions and didactic frameworks, Suter allows them to break free from linear categorization, constructing an autonomous visual universe where latent meanings emerge purely through juxtaposition and sequence.

The visual architecture of the book relies on a precise rhythm of scale, spatial balance, and layout across the codex format. Suter utilizes the page spread as an active laboratory, using the friction between recto and verso to spark unexpected cross-disciplinary conversations, where biological structures mirror mechanical components, and geographical topographies echo cultural artifacts. This deliberate montage technique highlights the fluidity of mechanical reproduction, demonstrating how second-hand images can acquire new symbolic resonance when liberated from their original contexts and reassembled in unexpected visual configurations.

Within Suter’s broader practice and the focus on printed matter as a sculptural object, Parallel Encyclopedia #1 remains an essential statement on the life cycle and infinite reappropriation of printed media. Rather than serving as a passive repository of knowledge, the volume operates as a generative artwork that transforms historical printed material into a dynamic, open-ended archive. It underscores how editing, sequence, and physical publication can refashion existing cultural artifacts into a captivating new primary work.

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Batia Suter’s Parallel Encyclopedia #2 functions as an expansive, visual investigation into the mutability of imagery and the latent narratives generated through recontextualization. Expanding upon her landmark 2007 publication, this monumental volume operates as a dense atlas of found photographs, archival reproductions, textbook clippings, and scientific plates. Suter bypasses linear text entirely, orchestrating a sprawling sequence where visual syntax takes precedence. By juxtaposing disparate elements ranging from geological formations and biological specimens to historical artifacts and architectural fragments, she examines how image grouping and page layout can radically alter perception, transforming static documentation into a dynamic web of cross-cultural and cross-temporal associations.

Suter treats the book format itself as an exhibition space, masterfully exploiting the friction between recto and verso pages so that images actively comment on, disrupt, or amplify one another. The visual analysis relies heavily on the "iconification" of printed matter, how historical or banal images stripped of their original captions acquire new associative charges and symbolic resonance when placed in unexpected visual dialogues.

Parallel Encyclopedia #2 stands out as a definitive statement on image circulation and reproducibility, a recurring theme in the Bushwick Sur Seine collection.