Philip Zimmermann

Tucson, Arizona, USA

Sanctus Sonorensis

offset on board with gilded edges and foil stamp titles

11 x 8 x 1 ½ (closed) 11 x 16 x 1 ½ (open)

© 2009

$50

This work comments on the complicated attitudes of Americans on illegal immigration from Mexico. The cover shows a photograph of the area of Southern Arizona which is the most active in terms of migration across the Sonoran desert, and where thousands have lost their lives in the deadly desert heat. The interior pages show the progression of a typical high-desert day from dawn to sunset, mimicking the sky above an immigrant during a day’s desert passage, and accompanied by a single line of text on each two-page spread.

Four-color offset lithography printed book was created as a series of two-page board-book spreads that minimize the visual distraction of a ‘gutter’ on the panoramic view of each skyscape. The edges of the book are rounded and gilded in the fashion of religious breviaries or missals. There is a gold-foiled title on the cover and spine. The book was printed and bound in China.

Phillip Zimmerman is currently a professor in the School of Art, University of Arizona in Tucson. He previously taught for 24 years at Purchase College, SUNY. He has been making artists’ books for over 35 years, and got his BFA from Cornell University and his MFA in Photographic Studies from Visual Studies Workshop program at SUNY Buffalo. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship as well as two NYFA Fellowships and many other awards. He is in most artists’ book collections around the world.