Description

Book Synopsis
A tear, engineered in 1856 by Rodolphe—the adulterous lover of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary—is dripped onto a breakup letter and sent to the heroine via messenger. “There ought to have been some tears on this; but I can’t cry; it isn’t my fault,” he says, but not to her. Then, having filled a drinking glass with water, Rodolphe dips his finger and lets a big drop fall onto the paper, leaving a pale stain on the ink. Cally Spooner’s monograph documents a large eco-system of 40+ works which takes the incident of this false tear as a lynch pin, to reflect on the outsourcing, hijacking, erosion, decay, or destruction of personal, subjective utterance, in a 21st-century hyper connected and financialized climate.

For the monograph, Spooner describes each work in an active, present-tense voice, intercut with diagrams, drawings, culled, and censored correspondence. New essays bring into focus central themes that play out in Spooner’s transdisciplinary performance work.

Cally Spooner: On False Tears

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    Format Paperback / softback

    £41.80

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    RRP £44.00 – you save £2.20 (5%)

    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Wed 28 Oct 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Hatje Cantz
      Published 7 May 2020
      ISBN-13 9783775746816
      978-3775746816
      ISBN-10 3775746811

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      A tear, engineered in 1856 by Rodolphe—the adulterous lover of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary—is dripped onto a breakup letter and sent to the heroine via messenger. “There ought to have been some tears on this; but I can’t cry; it isn’t my fault,” he says, but not to her. Then, having filled a drinking glass with water, Rodolphe dips his finger and lets a big drop fall onto the paper, leaving a pale stain on the ink. Cally Spooner’s monograph documents a large eco-system of 40+ works which takes the incident of this false tear as a lynch pin, to reflect on the outsourcing, hijacking, erosion, decay, or destruction of personal, subjective utterance, in a 21st-century hyper connected and financialized climate.

      For the monograph, Spooner describes each work in an active, present-tense voice, intercut with diagrams, drawings, culled, and censored correspondence. New essays bring into focus central themes that play out in Spooner’s transdisciplinary performance work.

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