THE DEERSLAYERS
[A limited edition folio by Les Krims]
Les Krims
Les Krims: THE DEERSLAYERS [A limited edition folio by Les Krims]. N.P. : Self-published, 1972. 23 sepia-toned plates printed on glossy card stock housed in hinged box with tipped-on cover image. Signed and numbered 1746 on separate sheet that contains Sweetman's text [as issued]. Plates lightly handled. Box hinge split with moderate edgewear. A very good copy.
[23] 5 x 5.375 plates housed in hinged block with text insert by Alex Sweetman hand-numbered 1746 and signed by Les Krims.
This quirky, unsettling collection contains photographs portraying "sportsmen" with one or more of their recently killed deer on top or inside their vehicles. This boxed set is increasingly hard to find complete with the entire set of plates.
"The Deerslayers," supposed hunters to be conceptual artists making sculpture. Near the end of Vietnam war, radical leftist activists using nasty ad hominem attack, characterized any gun-toting hunter as a murderer; police, as some may remember, were called "pigs." Tongue only slightly in cheek, I suggested that the deer trussed to cars, pick-ups, and campers-commonplace in upstate New York during hunting season-were best understood as sculpture, and a "performance" Hermann Nitsche would enjoy. The title was suggested by James Fennimore Cooper's novel, The Deerslayer. Those pictures were meant to conjure a creative appraisal and positive spin for a utilitarian sport practiced by many people living outside the radical-intellectual epicenter of New York City. Most deer hunters ate what they shot. And it's my guess that many lefty intellectuals would have strapped-on a Glock and gone hunting, too, if lox ran wild in Central Park."--Les Krims