The Philosophical Art of Self Defense

The Philosophical Art of Self Defense was a book I made in the early spring of 1990 in the Amit Hotel on Mission Street in San Francisco, right after I stopped living at the Cheap Art Store for a while. (I eventually returned.)  The title comes from a self defense manual by Bruce Lee (whose actual title in Cantonese meant Beginner’s Gung Fu.)  Many of the images employed in the collage come from the same manual.  Other pictures are drawn from a police guide to handcuffing a suspect.  There are also pictures of bears and birds of prey, from the pages of National Geographic, and Batman & Robin going through one of their many relationship crises.  The détourned text comes from writings by Raoul Vaneigem, Adrienne Rich, William Burroughs and Kathy Acker, among others.