Constantine Manos, Marcel van der Vlugt — A New Day

Harderwijk, The Netherlands: Uitgeverij D'Jonge Hond. First edition, first printing. 48 pp., 21.5 x 17.5 cm. Condition: Fine (F). Includes original plastic cover and white plastic ID card. Staged colour photographs of nude women in an imagined cosmetic clinic. The models lie on examining tables wearing medical props such as bandages, oxygen masks and bound limbs, and flowers appear to grow from or rest on their bodies. The idea is a clinic where patients receive implants of blossom instead of liposuction or nose jobs, a response to the make-over and plastic-surgery culture. The photographer describes the blossom as a metaphor for youth, new life and fertility. The pictures are carefully composed and conceptual, made with a large-format camera and Polaroids. The book is a monograph of a single series by Dutch photographer Marcel van der Vlugt. It holds 23 colour plates, with text in English, and was designed by Ron van der Vlugt. It is a softcover booklet kept in a transparent sleeve with a plastic hospital-style card on the front. The cover text invites the reader to imagine a big white room where nature could be inserted into the body and body parts replaced by fresh life.