The Book of Hours 

2010

Dutch-born sculptor, painter and illustrator Van Rijn teams up with thirteen writers of various backgrounds (among them Annie Sprinkle, Michael Manning, Peggy Munson) in a unique synthesis of text and image: The Book of Hours.

Van Rijn's body of work includes a vast collection of drawings and graphics

in various printing techniques, ranging from dry point etching, mezzotint and engraving to Xerox and digital prints. Described by Dian Hanson as "very pretty, very elegant, nearly like fashion illustration, but fully explicit…", his provocative portraits show women enacting a plethora of sexual fantasies, from BDSM to transgender play.

The Book of Hours is a project Van Rijn started back in 2008, conceived as a reference to the extensively ornamented, illustrated medieval clerical manuscripts and books of prayers. Van Rijn had the authors contribute texts

to pair with his illustrations and he subsequently developed ornamental artwork, reinterpretations of historic pieces, in correspondence to their reactions. This dialogue between the written and the visual makes up an impressive erotic volume where poetry and prose intermingle with exquisitely rendered black and white illustrations, a co-opting of a medieval religious format to find the Sacred in the Profane. 

The book was produced in an edition of 100 copies, numbered and signed with

an Ex Libris stamp. Printed on a digital offset printing press, the endpaper is a conventional analog offset print, 4/4 colored with gold added as a fifth color for the emblems. The English and German versions are bound back to back in a black linen hardcover. Paper is 150 gr/m² Gardapat classic.