Gong Co. is a monumental memento mori to the decline and decay of a family-owned grocery store in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, from which the book takes its name.
When Patterson first encountered the store in 2003, it was still open for business but seemingly stuck in time, its shelves scattered with long-expired products — an unintentional time capsule and uncanny fulfillment of Andy Warhol’s prophecy that “Someday, all department stores will become museums, and all museums will become department stores.”
Over the next twenty years, Patterson diligently documented the store’s disintegration, through its decline, death, and decay. In 2013, its doors were closed, with its contents left inside. Patterson continued to access the store until the day it was gutted in late 2019, and continued his work in the studio until 2023.
The book is presented as an aged and worn green, clothbound cover wrapped in a brown paper jacket resembling a grocery sack. Its fore edge appears foxed and molded; its inner pages appear to age, fox, and yellow as the book progresses. Its content is an eclectic mix of on-site and studio photographs, monotypes, trompe l’oeil collages, and cryptic handwritten notes.
TBW Books & Éditions Images Vevey, 2024
Casebound hardcover with French fold dust jacket
9 x 11 in / 23 x 28 cm
224 pages, 164 color plates
US/Japan – TBW Books – ISBN 978-1-942953-67-8 – SOLD OUT
Europe/UK – Édition Images Vevey – ISBN 978-2-940624-28-7
