This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection.
Gerald Laing was an artist that was part of the British Pop movement in the 1960s and remains one of the most well-known today. His work in this period was typically a painting of a reproduced image often a drag racer, skydiver, astronaut, or starlet. One of his most famous pieces is a painting from a newspaper photograph of Brigitte Bardo, which sold at Christie’s in February 2014 for just under $1.5 million.
Laing was deeply influenced by the experiences of William Burroughs in the Amazonian rainforest in search of ‘Ayahuasca’ the hallucinogenic vine with the active ingredient Dimethyltriptamine (D.M.T.) This beautiful volume published in 1969 is a result of that influence, it is illustrated with 23 screenprints by Laing and the text was written by Galina Valentina Golikova. This deluxe edition of DMT 42 is no. 50 out of the 210 copies produced and each print is signed by Laing. It comes in a soft-cover book with silver wrappers that is housed in a claret corduroy case. The color screenprints throughout the volume are very indicative of Laing’s British Pop inclinations.
Golikova who wrote the text for DMT 42 was actually Laing’s second wife. He ended up doing a sculptural series on her entitled Galina I to X from 1973 to 1980. Laing states that he experienced an epiphany at Charles Sargeant Jagger’s great First World War Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in England, which led to the Galina Series. It marked a new method for Laing who had previously only worked with sheet metal but began sculpting in clay and then casting in bronze during this period.
To see more examples of Laing’s work in DMT 42 /[text] by G. V. Golikova ; illuminated by Gerald Laing. [Deluxe edition] Stuttgart : Edition Domberger, [1969]. N7433.4.L35A4 1969bPF please visit the Fine Arts Library. We are lucky to also have another edition of DMT 42 in a different binding which can be located at the Fine Arts Library as well- N7433.4.L35 A4 1969 PF
Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager for contributing this post.