“The purpose of a room derives from the special nature of a room. A room is inside. This is what people in rooms have to agree on, as differentiated from lawns, meadows, fields, orchards.”
Room Behavior is a book about rooms. Composed of texts and images from the most varied sources – including crime novels, decorating manuals, anthropological studies, performance art, crime scene photos, literature and the Bible, to name a few – Kovitz shapes the material through a process of highly subjective editing, ordering and juxtaposition to create an original, fascinating and darkly funny rumination about the behavior of rooms and the people that they keep.
"Like the rooms he depicts, the pages of this book are host to an evocative and thought-provoking life of their own.” - Uptown Magazine
“Strange and clever.” - Globe & Mail
“The book is a unique mini-coffee table paperback, beautifully designed ... Much more than a ‘gift’ book, Room Behavior is something to pause and reflect on whenever you think about rearranging your furniture.” — Fast Forward
“This is a book to keep, to review again and again. Funny, but deep.” — Umbrella
Treyf 25th Anniversary edition.
treyf, adj. [Yiddish] - not kosher, unclean.
Treyf Books by Rob Kovitz are unusual books of an indeterminate type, sort of story-picture montage-remix books for people who can’t stomach any more schmaltzy Chicken Soup for the Soul. Treyf Books are cooked up using texts and images compiled from various sources, usually obsessively related to one or more themes, and then recombined through a process of highly subjective editing, ordering and juxtaposition.
“Strange and clever.” - Globe & Mail
“Funny, but deep.” - Umbrella
“Is this a new form of discourse in step with its multivalent, chaotic times, or just an excuse for intellectual laziness? Only the author knows for sure.” - Canadian Architect