Contingency book, takes literally Duchamp's dictum from his essay The Creative Act, that it is the viewer who finishes any work of art. Bradshaw applied wax, varnish, and silver to sheets of linen paper, then sandwiched them between other chemically active works leaving them to oxidize, buried in her studio, untouched, for two years. The resulting book of the bound pages, epic in size and imposingly archaic-like as if it was a medieval, mystical tome, contains the writings and drawings of chemistry from the bleedings of her other works onto these pages. There exudes a strong whiff of alchemy here, though in reverse, especially in the way the silver turns gold briefly during its first oxidation before becoming black.On display, the book continues to change; the open pages oxidize, the closed pages bleed. A viewer’s breath or a page-turner’s fingers affect and, in the Duchampian sense, “finish” the work.

                                                                                                                                                                                                             Mark Swed                                                                                Dove Bradshaw, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1998

Contingency Book II
1995
Activated March 1995; photographed May 1998
Silver, liver of sulfur, varnish, beeswax on linen paper; Seven sheets bound with steel clips housed in steel box stamped with the artist’s name, box and table designed by the artist
Paper: 26 ¼ x 42 ¼ inches; Collection of the artist               See Main Menu: Contingency Book

Half the silvered pages were sandwiched between previously treated works; the other half were stored one against the other. After two years they were bound together. When the book is closed the pages that had absorbed the chemistry print onto the untreated pages; when opened the silver oxidizes; when turned, fingers leave prints, and leave marks.