Plots on Loan

Seven years in the making, Raymond Pettibon’s satirical book of lithographs, Plots on Loan, was jointly published in 2001 by the galleries Brooke Alexander, Inc. and David Zwirner. The 72-page book, printed on thick, velvety Somerset Mauve paper, features the artist’s hand-drawn ink illustrations and snippets of poetic text borrowed from the writer’s own coy mind as well as famous novelists like Marcel Proust and William Faulkner. Pettibon’s drawings and accompanying text explore ideas both mundane and esoteric, from writer’s block to Charles Manson to the silence following an atomic bomb. Distinctly Americana and darkly humorous, “Plots on Loan” can also be collected in a suite of ten and six lithographs, titled “Plots on Loan I” and “Plots on Loan II,” respectively.