A book cover featuring a collage of contrasting elements: a white architectural model of a building is overlaid on a chaotic scene of litter and discarded items, including colorful trash bags and cardboard boxes. Two birds are perched above the mess, and the title "PHAIDON" is displayed at the bottom. The background is a neutral wall.

Paul de Guzman, Proposed Layout for M.D. (Mark Dion), 2001, paper. SFU Art Collection. Gift of Robert Sherwood Thill in honor of L.A. Angelmaker's Dear History Correspondence, 2024.

Rachel Topham Photography
A book cover featuring a collage of contrasting elements: a white architectural model of a building is overlaid on a chaotic scene of litter and discarded items, including colorful trash bags and cardboard boxes. Two birds are perched above the mess, and the title "PHAIDON" is displayed at the bottom. The background is a neutral wall.
The image features the cover of a book titled "Le Musée de l’Art Contemporain," authored by James Putnam. The background displays a digitally manipulated gallery scene with paintings on the walls and a floor covered in a dense pattern resembling human figures. A transparent cut-out reveals a minimalist architectural design against the vibrant background. The title and author's name are prominently displayed in white text. The overall composition conveys a blend of traditional art gallery aesthetics with contemporary visual elements.

Title

Proposed Layout for M.D. (Mark Dion)

Artist

Paul de Guzman

Year

2001

Collection

SFU Art Collection

Year Acquired

2024

This original altered book by Paul de Guzman is part of his 'Invisible Cities' series (2001–2006), inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel of the same title. In this series, de Guzman meticulously excises sections of printed text from books on art and architecture, leaving behind only the gutters and margins. This surgical process reveals the book’s internal "architecture," transforming it into a sculptural object.

Proposed Layout for M.D. (Mark Dion) specifically pays tribute to artist Mark Dion, whose pseudo-scientific and archaeological display methods de Guzman admires. The work, being itself an excised Mark Dion catalogue, parallels Dion’s archival excavations through its own method of textual removal, likening the act of reading and cutting to uncovering hidden structures and layers. The altered book is accompanied by a companion piece made from the excised fragments, mounted in small Plexiglas frames. Each cut follows a consistent rectangular form, scaled to half the dimensions of the paperback edition of Invisible Cities, reinforcing the conceptual basis of the series.

Artists

Paul de Guzman (1965 -), born in Manila, Philippines, studied engineering before immigrating to Canada in 1986. His artistic practice is characterized as post-studio and nomadic, reflecting his autodidactic education in art, which he cultivated through extensive reading on art, theory, and architecture. De Guzman’s work engages with the institutional nature of architecture through a conceptual and linguistic lens. He creates transient and temporary structures that employ diverse media—text, sculpture, installation, photography, sound, video, performance, and social practice— tailored to each project. A central theme of his artistic investigation is the recognition of language, architecture, and, more recently, religion as mechanisms of control.

In 2010, he founded the Museum for the Administration of Aesthetics (MAA) which is a research-based, itinerant project that addresses issues related to the urban environment and social interactions involving architecture. De Guzman has exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. His artwork has been collected by private individuals, as well as corporate and public institutions such as the Art Gallery of York University (Toronto, ON), Burnaby Art Gallery, Bank of Canada (Toronto, ON), Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT), Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Canada Council Art Bank (Ottawa, ON).