In 1996, rock band The Afghan Whigs released their album Black Love, a musical opus that changed the lives of many of the group’s loyal followers. The well-known lore that a film would accompany the record never came to fruition, leaving devotees to wonder what such a visual accompaniment might have looked like. There Is No Light at the End of the Tunnel Because the Tunnel Is Made of Light is Ryan Spencer’s personal rendering of this mythical film (that never was) in book form. Using stills from neo-noir films set in Los Angeles that could quite possibly exist as scenes from the imagined moving picture, and with a keen understanding of and appreciation for photography and old cinema, the artist stitches together a narrative directed by the song titles and linear narratives of The Afghan Whigs’ epic record. Rebecca Bengal’s fictional essay anchors the book’s stylized, physical “pulp” qualities.
