The Fertility of the Soil is a purely visual juxtasposition of grand-scale wonders – floods, storms, natural disasters – and more intimate, quotidian matters – sex, the male body, and the simple, yet overwhelming, miracle of starting a fire. The book was originally made as a unique object for the Nancy Spero exhibition “Burning in Hell” at the Franklin Furnace in 1992. Hendricks meanders throughout a variety of themes with photography, high gothic Victorian medical diagrams, and mock-Elizabethan wood cuts. The book comes in a carboard case with metal fastenings and, of course, contains its very own bundle of kindling, tied up with string.

The Fertility of the Soil is dedicated to the memory of Brian Buczak.