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Let us allow Phil Cleaver to unpack his collection [1]: books, stamps, wooden statuettes, coloured match boxes, drawings, cigarette cards, ‘are at home in a Cabinet of Curiosities.’ Describing his bookcase, the repository of this unlikely gathering, as a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ (Cleaver 2019, 9) is not an overstatement.(Figure. 1) Visitors to his exhibition at Gallery 8 in London could see it as large-scale poster hung on a corner wall, an exception from what was, otherwise, shown there: a selection from Cleaver’s more than 120 book-assemblages.(Figure. 2) A photographic representation of the same cabinet and accompanying close-ups are included in Book-Object-Art (2019), Cleaver’s ‘book of books’. These images connote a ceremonial solemnity, in the still order and tidy presentation of their subjects. Inside the cabinet, on the shelves, books are organised according to size, shape and colour. On their spines author and title are rather indistinguishable, being screened by a myriad of smaller ephemera: insignia, match boxes, propaganda images, and toys. The reason for having all these things gathered remains obscure, apart from the fact that, as Cleaver tells us, he found them at flea markets or vintage bookshops.
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