600 BLACK SPOTS

Carter’s third set of large-scale, knock-your-socks-off pop-up abstracts (following One Red Dot, 2005, and Blue 2, 2006) takes a quick tour through modern art, celebrating jazz and visual spontaneity, as well as paying specific tribute to Mondrian and the Fauves. Each pop-up is festooned with black dots—some printed, others glued on or suspended on bits of thread—and for the less compulsive counters in his audience, the author mercifully supplies a total in each of his appropriately cryptic captions: “Deep reflective hocus pocus . . . and 53 Black Spots.” All of the brightly colored figures are placed on equally intense monochromatic backgrounds, and all are either intricately intertwined as the spread opens, or move with the pull of a sturdy tab. Without some learned commentary, the general theme is likely to pass over the heads of children (not to mention many grown-ups), but all of the movement and color here create a riveting visual experience. (Novelty. 6-8, adult)