Overview
It's the man on the moon, right? Keep looking. Okay — whoa! — now it's two lovers moving in for a kiss. Try another. This one? It's a bowl of fruit. Pick it up. Flip it over. Ah...now it's a guy in a helmet!As design historian George Tscherny so readily shows in this endlessly engaging book, perception is a fragile and easily manipulated commodity. Changing Faces presents an idiosyncratic and humorous collection of paintings, drawings, cartoons, masks, toys, advertisements, and other works of ephemera that — either by flipping or flopping or just plain staring — somehow transform the human physiognomy. Here you will find optical illusions from the Renaissance, Enlightenment-era political cartoons, and Victorian toys that all start off as one thing and end up as another. Sometimes these mutations were made for fun (give magnetic hair to a bald man!) sometimes for profit (buy a Studebaker!), and sometimes to score a political point (watch a French king turn into a big fat pear!), but the results are always an intriguing pleasure to watch. Not every book on our list promises an afternoon of pleasant diversion — architecture is serious business — but we're confident that after a few moments with this volume even the most jaded readers will — forgive us! — find their frowns turned upside down.Author Biography: George Tscherny is a design consultant for the School of Visual Arts and is principal of George Tscherny, Inc., a design firm in New York City. In 1997 he was inducted into the New York Arts Directors Hall of Fame.
Synopsis
Tscherny apparently has never met a face he didn't like, as long as he can change it. He offers his collection of playing cards, cartoons, masks, toys, and placards, all of which manipulate perception. He explores masks, puzzles, and drawings that flip, flop, or morph to recreate features, and toys ranging from that potato- based life form to a magnetic toy that applies beards and hair to the follicularly challenged. His collection includes truly odd gender- bending materials from Victorian times, political cartoons that probably landed somebody in jail, and a brilliant though startling accessory in the form of a flexible mirror bound into the book. Tscherny, the principle of a New York design company, is apparently so dedicated to his subject that he graces his own author's biography in a mythical beast mask. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR