Yung LeanVaporwave2010

iPhone 68XSE574Legatoria Industriale Artigianale500

9596Me and MumDead FishTravis

256GB is Yung Leans first book, tracing the artists evolution and continual reinvention. Yung Lean has generated a mass following as a cult icon. Poised between influence and infamy, his outsider status emerged from the internet-based culture of the early 2010s, characterised by its vaporwave aesthetic of nostalgia, surrealism and melancholia. Fusing sincere introspection with humour, his practice continues to resonate with audiences around the world.

Collating 574 images shot across iPhones 6, 8, X & SE, the book exemplifies Yung Leans autonomous artistic production. Intimate, extemporary images stored in a personal photo library are reformulated into a classical book form. Produced in Italy, the books material construction draws upon the 500-year-old tradition of bible-making at Legatoria Industriale Artigianales premises in Cava de Tirreni. Red hot-foil typography graces a melanged green substrate. The spine paired with a red silk ribbon furthers the books aesthetic resonance. Each copy of the book is accompanied by a silver sticker sheet as a token of viral ephemera provoking the books classical endurance.

The erratic, temporal organisation of the camera roll is reformulated through the books nine chapters across 596 pages, categorised by colour red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, and white. Encountered in this way, the books images lose their impulsive quality and take on new signification as a cohesively structured volume. The logic of the books index exaggerates the blunt dissonance of its contents. Images are categorised into a list, each referenced by an unambiguous word or phrase Me and Mum, Dead Fish and Travis, echoing the candid, deadpan approach of Leans lyricism.