tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66662266093762232202024-02-19T10:50:29.990-05:005B4Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger382125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-61147204046893809842020-06-16T07:45:00.003-04:002020-06-16T07:46:36.735-04:005B4 Photography and Books is now at www.patreon.com/jeffrey_laddAs of now <b>5B4 Photography and Books is continuing</b> at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/jeffrey_ladd">www.patreon.com/jeffrey_ladd</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-61331810429769677022011-06-20T05:41:00.003-04:002011-06-21T05:48:20.796-04:00Drawings on a Bus, 1954 by Ellsworth Kelly<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCrkd6Zt_65b9zujw-vFMhBHKMrp8tjZXgVBugexeK3wc4PXSsjpPv1nHWuDuNzG9PKIF9A4ZXtGao8UPmIKSyvrjh2Ix8wlxcRGjaWkyXNHfpPn59uYTej8BeORRz7Wg-1es4MLwwNps/s1600/kellycomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCrkd6Zt_65b9zujw-vFMhBHKMrp8tjZXgVBugexeK3wc4PXSsjpPv1nHWuDuNzG9PKIF9A4ZXtGao8UPmIKSyvrjh2Ix8wlxcRGjaWkyXNHfpPn59uYTej8BeORRz7Wg-1es4MLwwNps/s400/kellycomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620605901728227906" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />After the Kassel festival I suffered from a bit of photobook burnout. The festival is growing to a decent size but 4 twelve hour days looking and talking about books can send even the most dedicated to seek a break. So, I wanted to intersperse a few non-photo related books over the next weeks which I found irresistible on this trip.<br /><br />The first is a book which was published by Matthew Marks Gallery and Steidl in 2007 and can be found at a very cheap price on some remainder tables in Europe - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3865214150/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=5b4photandboo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=3865214150%22%3EEllsworth%20Kelly:%201954,%20Drawings%20on%20a%20Bus%20%28Sketchbook%20S.%29%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=5b4photandboo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=3865214150&camp=217145&creative=399373%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20%21important;%20margin:0px%20%21important;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ellsworth Kelly: Drawings on a Bus, 1954</span></a>. My copy set me back a measly 12 euros.<br /><br />After six years in Paris, Kelly returned to New York in 1954 where a friend gave him a hardcover publisher's dummy of an old Sigfried Giedion Bauhaus book from the 20s thinking the blank pages would be perfect for sketching.<br /><br />While riding the bus, this sketchbook (number #23), was filled with the chance drawings of the bus window shadows as they fell across the pages. Quickly marking the pages with the various changing shadows, he later inked in the outlines at his studio. Some of these sketches he later developed into larger paintings.<br /><br />Abstract and in bold black and white they define the space on the page with graphic impulsive gestures which seem closer to typography than a response to simple light and dark patterns on the paper. The sequence reveals the pages filling with more black giving the sense of zooming in on the subtle nuances of these shadow/letter forms until an oval void spread across facing pages punctuates the ending.<br /><br />The size of the book, the cardboard slipcase, printing and length feel near perfect. The fact that the blue cover - originally designed by the great Laszlo Moholy-Nagy for Giedion's book <span style="font-style: italic;">Bauen in Eisenbeton, Bauen in Eisen, Bauen in Frankreich</span> - remains intact with Moholy-Nagy's typography and design suits the content in resonant ways.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-9453631102703272522011-06-14T05:25:00.003-04:002011-06-14T05:33:02.638-04:00L.A. Women by Joachim Schmid<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh91uCLQRkiH0XkF1F8O-MxofKK3uHPOrYeQBBm-jBhyaCXhyphenhyphen__4_dYJTTtteZPjdQ4AxUOVnkWHhwwj-_2sjIplIM9Xs6hpXP_Lc0-1-it-SsnMcJ2ql6RBisErWC4lJDII1DXXLu_hD0/s1600/schmidcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 57px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh91uCLQRkiH0XkF1F8O-MxofKK3uHPOrYeQBBm-jBhyaCXhyphenhyphen__4_dYJTTtteZPjdQ4AxUOVnkWHhwwj-_2sjIplIM9Xs6hpXP_Lc0-1-it-SsnMcJ2ql6RBisErWC4lJDII1DXXLu_hD0/s400/schmidcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618004517676968914" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />One of the foundations of Joachim Schmid's work is the thought that there are way too many photographs in the world already so why not put those that exist to some intelligent use. At least, let us look at them a second time and contemplate their existence, or recontextualize them and introduce further questions of what we look at, what we draw in meaning, and what are the lasting values of the images. His latest book <a href="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2185878"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">L.A. Women</span></a> has a darker, real life context which is why I have chosen it as a follow up to Watabe Yukichi's <span style="font-style: italic;">A Criminal Investigation</span>.<br /><br />In December 2010, the Los Angeles Police Department released 180 photographs of women found in the home of a known serial murder suspect. The release of the images was a public appeal for help in identifying the women who might be missing and those still alive as the known victims number only a dozen. The photographs do not tell which are which, they provide only a pool of possibility.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAV2A7yUEr9GFUC3ahOCPfhdIh968ANtYgOaAqmWmaDRdjjy4yBn2rhn1JLnt6WoYkfe4ZPcRp22brl3M8cm-f2jeMwo5GAoYX-SOU61UrXeDj6Bf5jG8dq6RZcmPYJj0b-clIsm69944/s1600/schmidcomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAV2A7yUEr9GFUC3ahOCPfhdIh968ANtYgOaAqmWmaDRdjjy4yBn2rhn1JLnt6WoYkfe4ZPcRp22brl3M8cm-f2jeMwo5GAoYX-SOU61UrXeDj6Bf5jG8dq6RZcmPYJj0b-clIsm69944/s400/schmidcomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618004440387034466" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Without the context of sensational serial murder attached, the images appear to be innocuous portraits made with poor quality film, digital and video cameras. All are black women but for two whites. Some would look like pictures that people post to Facebook pages or snapped by friends. Many of the women smile, some appear asleep, many sit in the passenger seats of cars. A few of the images reveal small clues that some of the women might be exposing their breasts to the photographer although none of the croppings reveal any nudity.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-_0kjS5c_eA4EnyJTvQUy9XetCenriMi77AiYb_18Sa7mRPgYqVbX5w2dGsNbBQ5Aha7jtAvIIYk_H1yPvorbduWTDpk_5TrO5KN5BehpQsLz4fnFRSklXxh_lP-6xArx3iesMqk8J4/s1600/schmidcomp3.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-_0kjS5c_eA4EnyJTvQUy9XetCenriMi77AiYb_18Sa7mRPgYqVbX5w2dGsNbBQ5Aha7jtAvIIYk_H1yPvorbduWTDpk_5TrO5KN5BehpQsLz4fnFRSklXxh_lP-6xArx3iesMqk8J4/s400/schmidcomp3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618004361525584338" border="0" /></a><br /><br />With the context of being attached to the suspect, we search for grim clues. Many of which appear to have been taken in the back of a van. We notice that the rear windows have been masked with opaque paper or tinfoil. Some might be prostitutes but as Schmid says in his introduction, "We don't know," not even if the suspect took the images himself. One is snapped standing outside of the vehicle through the open passenger side window. She smiles as if stopping to chat with a neighbor. Does she know the driver or is the smile an automatic instinctual response to the camera? Is she being enticed into the car? offered a ride? In another, the photographer casts a shadow as he(?) frames a vertical but nothing is revealed that might lead the investigation. We feel the pull of information but are left dangling within the eeriness of the images.<br /><br />We stare into the faces, some blurred by technical imperfections, and are confused by their calm expressions and smiles. We know the potential of the situation they are frozen within and for a moment we connect on a basic human level for survival - to warn and protect. Or, perhaps like viewing an image of a person before execution, we look to feel fear and master death one image at a time.</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2185878"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">L.A. Women</span></a> is available through Blurb. Joachim Schmid is a part of the <a href="http://abcoop.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">ABC (Artists' Book Cooperative)</span></a> which is currently the subject of a show at New York's <a href="http://www.printedmatter.org/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Printed Matter</span></a>.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-41770237256553999892011-06-09T12:47:00.004-04:002011-06-09T13:04:31.398-04:00A Criminal Investigation by Watabe Yukichi<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_mKA_hLdFpSOmgxyxCkjMVl04tPTYdbRC5wcKONz_lWEcAuvUsEkuv5o4XVb05sJ3rM-s3iIcHcQ9DJX2PJ-SLeLcDuisJ9m6-J-95_HM0May3uenQX59mEh7BGwUCqWNQZ6ESYDtFI0/s1600/yukichicomp1a.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 62px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_mKA_hLdFpSOmgxyxCkjMVl04tPTYdbRC5wcKONz_lWEcAuvUsEkuv5o4XVb05sJ3rM-s3iIcHcQ9DJX2PJ-SLeLcDuisJ9m6-J-95_HM0May3uenQX59mEh7BGwUCqWNQZ6ESYDtFI0/s400/yukichicomp1a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616263069192809714" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Many of you have wondered if 5B4 is dead. The answer is no, I needed a two month break. Not because I am too busy publishing (I always keep myself very busy) but because I was having trouble finding things to write about. I am not a professional writer nor critic so finding something to say which I haven't already in the past 400+ posts can be a bit of a task. That said, I just attended the Kassel Photobook festival with a small satchel of items which has me excited to spread the word on a few books I discovered. Watabe Yukichi's <a href="http://www.exb.fr/#"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">A Criminal Investigation</span></a> from the publisher Xavier Barral is my first choice of favorites so far.<br /><br />Sitting closely to the tradition of a photo novel, <a href="http://www.exb.fr/#"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">A Criminal Investigation</span></a> follows a police detective in 1958 Tokyo as he investigates a gruesome crime - the discovery dismembered body near Sembaku Lake in Ibaraki Prefecture. Accompanying the detective was the photographer Watabe Yukichi who seems to have documented the progress of the case as thoroughly as the investigators did to the crime.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9y5JpWWDVXfhXymHjYSddSx7xg_y3_9GnGpvw07K6sMrg3mCbWpEJ-fIg6QREuuiA10znkLlTGhP-wvxrgYq2AX5__glxi7k-53eUPnXRyK7Sul6gpSsRujIDT2AUV5SLtnAVeJfc0vc/s1600/yukichicomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 56px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9y5JpWWDVXfhXymHjYSddSx7xg_y3_9GnGpvw07K6sMrg3mCbWpEJ-fIg6QREuuiA10znkLlTGhP-wvxrgYq2AX5__glxi7k-53eUPnXRyK7Sul6gpSsRujIDT2AUV5SLtnAVeJfc0vc/s400/yukichicomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616262798606335314" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Yukichi was a freelance photojournalist who was granted special permission to document the "dismembered-corpse case" as it was referred. Shooting in black and white 35mm, the results play out like a film noir, complete with the detective looking more and more like a Japanese Humphrey Bogart as the story develops. In fact, as one becomes drawn into the filmic quality of every detail of the pictures and sequence, it is easy to overlook that this was an actual criminal investigation was of something so sinister.<br /><br />As a photographer, Yukichi worked this situation with apparent vigor. Each and every picture is interesting in its own right - I can't find a superfluous image in the edit. Bookwise, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">A Criminal Investigation</span> has a near perfect form and tone for such an essay with Japanese folded pages and a deep gravure-like printing. Its unique page twisting design causes interesting breaks in the flow of images like small chapters or vignettes as the case turns its various corners. A minimal amount of text contributes the facts of the case and the conclusion which took several more years to solve. I won't spoil the ending.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.exb.fr/#"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">A Criminal Investigation</span></a> was co-published by Le Bal in Paris which currently has an exhibition of this work along with Yutaka Takanashi and Keizo Kitajima. Copies are available in the Le Bal bookshop.<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-81961402400486141242011-04-09T12:24:00.000-04:002011-04-10T12:31:29.354-04:00Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino by Boris Mikhailov<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGMDZBI6-eFEAIAnoMnaJSfxd9urfgp4_7JGcCoZQ-Winla54-PxohyphenhypheniPFeTaZttVOJ1d0tEGSRwH7G4EsHz0XWjf8QrI4koHl8zH8pupEJpCT0vR857QQSwuaH86V8VLEft32kRXlYE/s1600/Mikhailov1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 54px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGMDZBI6-eFEAIAnoMnaJSfxd9urfgp4_7JGcCoZQ-Winla54-PxohyphenhypheniPFeTaZttVOJ1d0tEGSRwH7G4EsHz0XWjf8QrI4koHl8zH8pupEJpCT0vR857QQSwuaH86V8VLEft32kRXlYE/s400/Mikhailov1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593992390065196786" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />Writing in the foreword to his 1996 book <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Am Boden</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">By the Ground</span>) Boris Mikhailov states; The fourth year of change. Not much has been reorganized, but a lot has changed. I already notice the tendency towards a "new" society, a deterioration in the quality of life for most people and the waning hope that some time everything will turn out fine for them. He continues; To a certain extent, I was always a street photographer. I always searched the streets for historical symbols of the present times. The streets reflect social processes like a mirror. What that book and its companion <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Die Dämmerung</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">At Dusk</span>) described was bleak - everything seems to have collapsed at once spreading, in Mikhailov's words, the feeling of a natural catastrophe. It was felt in the book's titles - the darkening end of an era and the lowered perspective pulling us to the earth. the title of his newest offering <a href="http://www.artbook.com/9783865608772.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino</span></a> published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König might be signaling a lighter, more positive view. Guess again.<br /><br />Photographing in his hometown of Kharkov, Mikhailov has once again taken to the streets to reflect social process. On the cover, three men laugh and smile good-naturedly at the camera, almost mocking the choices offered by the book's title. What choice has been given by the arrival of western splendor? Cappuccino? The blossoming adverts that rise above the crumbled and muddy streets? Nearly everyone in the 200 color photographs seem to be carrying shopping bags and bundles full of goods giving the impression that success has been achieved but as Mikhailov speculates "a flux of cheap commodities has conquered ubiquitously, creating a colorful new plastic reality." The previous eras long breadlines have now been replaced by lines waiting for infrequent trams.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO45rCW13vP7tBqsVboO8yV-lJxbXaRE3hTVWxJdHqMXW6bvJUqUGsmCtDmjuzjNU5nwMFcFq96AofytgCrA0FLUKmMIpCmz2_UTz_EGwVZNDlxk7Kjkm4ibeWS9W8t0wK9hj74zOxUwo/s1600/Mikhailov2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 66px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO45rCW13vP7tBqsVboO8yV-lJxbXaRE3hTVWxJdHqMXW6bvJUqUGsmCtDmjuzjNU5nwMFcFq96AofytgCrA0FLUKmMIpCmz2_UTz_EGwVZNDlxk7Kjkm4ibeWS9W8t0wK9hj74zOxUwo/s400/Mikhailov2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593992021288933714" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The facing spreads form disjointed panoramics which seem a natural continuum to <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">By the Ground</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">At Dusk</span>. Mikhailov notes that the photos 'fitted together in a chronologic order: what was photographed earlier is at the beginning, and the later photos are towards the end.' This order, bracketed by images of people kicking up their heels in impromptu can-can dances, seems to show a drift into a mental state of escapism and spectacle until a Kurt Cobain Jesus makes his appearance in the final photograph.<br /><br />Bookwise, <a href="http://www.artbook.com/9783865608772.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino</span></a> is straightforward in design and printing. The flow of images seems daunting because of the amount but appropriate for a book that is partly about the dream of excess. The awkward cover design seems to be a nod towards the poor design of the ever-present advertising seen throughout the book.<br /><br />As in all of Mikhailov's other books his presence is felt or literally seen as both insider and outsider. In <a href="http://www.artbook.com/9783865608772.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino</span></a> he pratfalls out of a kiosk doorway and perches on a small railing trying to inject humor as an occasional diversion. This portrait of Kharkov might be his darkest work yet. Even though Case History portrayed a populace often homeless and rife with disease there was a sense that death - an end to the misery - was close at hand. In <a href="http://www.artbook.com/9783865608772.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Tea, Coffee, Cappuccino</span></a>, what he has shown might be the state for a long time to come.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-80929280991913902832011-04-04T12:57:00.005-04:002011-04-04T17:36:36.116-04:00d.a. levy Electric Greek Poems by Jon Beacham<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhujDzxY95o2DpSkn9mFOwjYg0vadQ_rRsmsD9y90X3w0c_OEqQgZxzTggP2mIq_SuyvR65dggAG48SFuB2IJtxIarjb5papHJx9y7Y8y5eeP6ay2g_xXXMt_mTI4hWqEqBiTEj-aFNRns/s1600/levycomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 58px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhujDzxY95o2DpSkn9mFOwjYg0vadQ_rRsmsD9y90X3w0c_OEqQgZxzTggP2mIq_SuyvR65dggAG48SFuB2IJtxIarjb5papHJx9y7Y8y5eeP6ay2g_xXXMt_mTI4hWqEqBiTEj-aFNRns/s400/levycomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591773702794170450" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >My love of typography especially that adapted by great designers like Jan Tschichold and others has led to an appreciation of the concrete poets working from the 1950s onward. These were poets who refused to think of words as mere indifferent vehicles without a visual life of their own that could further communicate by their physical arrangement on the printed page. People like Dick Higgins, Claus Bremmer and Emmett Williams are among the well known but my favorite who isn't usually cited would be Ferdinand Kriwet, who for photobook lovers, created the circular "poem" that precedes the photographs in Ed van der Elsken's classic book Sweet Life.<br /><br />One poet who I knew little about before discovering a facsimile of his work produced by local Brooklyn artist and printmaker Jon Beacham is D.A. Levy. Levy was a Cleveland based poet and artist working in the 1960s and his self produced mimeograph books were his main medium.<br /><br />As primarily a bookmaker, his most widely distributed works <span style="font-style: italic;">The North American Book of the Dead</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cleveland Undercovers</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Suburban Monastery Death Poem</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Tombstone as a Lonely Charm</span> count as only a few among over 160 publications he produced in his short lifetime before committing suicide on November 24,1968 at age 26 (11 days after I was born).<br /><br />In the fall of 1968, Levy was invited to Madison to be a poet in residence at the University of Wisconsin by David Wagner and Morris Edelson. During this time he created a series of concrete poems and a collection titles <span style="font-style: italic;">Electric Greek Poems</span> - a reference to the originators of visual poetry which were used as decoration for religious artworks and alter shaped poems dating back to the 2nd century BC. This facsimile collection contains some of the last works created by Levy before his death.<br /><br />19 individual sheets printed by hand on a Vandercook, Jon Beacham has published an edition of 165 copies faithful in every way exactly to the original but for use of a brown cover stock instead of the original blue. The physical aesthetics of craft - the imperfect typewritten covers (set with an IBM Selectric typewriter) and the slight impression of the ink into the paper from the pass of the Vandercook's drum - are a welcome distraction from the digitized detachment from objects not touched by hands.<br /><a href="http://www.thebrotherinelysium.com/thebrotherinelysium.html"><br />Go here to order and find out more about Beacham and his other projects.</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-5336179961254993512011-03-31T12:59:00.002-04:002011-03-31T13:03:11.092-04:00Films by Paul Graham<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7JD0zd4NKAFmWgP1KJp_bxYte_4do9wq4F79UTNaFq8-pU_MKviiOjcq5diOYOkIiAQzXCF-GhXawRuGo9UmgzMvD-U0WGctO-z0cQy1CyCeFVJ0Sa6JiE8VhVTmKwgt84swZEGiEnQ4/s1600/grahamcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 49px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7JD0zd4NKAFmWgP1KJp_bxYte_4do9wq4F79UTNaFq8-pU_MKviiOjcq5diOYOkIiAQzXCF-GhXawRuGo9UmgzMvD-U0WGctO-z0cQy1CyCeFVJ0Sa6JiE8VhVTmKwgt84swZEGiEnQ4/s400/grahamcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5590290070248212594" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />The debate years ago on whether film was "better" than digital ruffled a lot of feathers. The old guard held tight to their precious rolls fearing for their eventual disappearance. The argument was framed in technical details but the simple fact is, it is photography either way and making a lasting image is no easier with digital as it was with film - you just don't have to get your hands wet. Ironically, the negative health effects of photo chemistry is probably about the same as digital if you edit and process files with your radiating "laptop" laying across your groin.<br /><br />As a printmaker for most of my adult life, I maintain a love for film and the process of developing and printing. It is not "magical" for me nor has it ever been watching images form in chemistry under amber safelights. I simply love the way light reflects off of the paper and sensing the chaos of grain that has built the image. Paul Graham's newest book from Mack books <a href="http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/pages/films/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Films</span></a> is an homage to that basic component of grain which is not so easily mimicked by pixels.<br /><br />Graham has scanned small portions of his negatives and enlarged them to reveal only the grainy color dyes. These large color fields are as minimalist as he could get away from his usual approach to picture making. Some might be confounded by this book after his celebrated <span style="font-style: italic;">A Shimmer of Possibility</span> but for me, this work fits into a continuum as I see most of his books not only exploring the social landscape but the basic make-up of photography. His books <span style="font-style: italic;">A1</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Troubled Land</span> could been seen as examples of the optics, the precision and depth of field we might expect from large format work. His book <span style="font-style: italic;">Beyond Caring</span> is more reliant on the speed of the shutter to still the goings on in DHSS offices. His book <span style="font-style: italic;">End of an Age</span> embraces the variety of color balance from many light sources as he circles his pirouetting figures. His book <span style="font-style: italic;">American Night</span> amplifies the role of the aperture in his description of what we want to see and what we might be willing to overlook. And now <a href="http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/pages/films/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Films</span></a> brings the microcosm of the physical material to light. As Graham has said of this work, it is a "negative retrospective" of his practice.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/pages/films/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Films</span></a> is beautifully printed in a high-gloss paper stock to mimic the sheen of celluloid. In a few plates I sense he is also employing a bit of Gaussian blur to create cloud-like alternates that one might see if they have not critically focused the enlarger - a potential human "mistake" in the process which digital certainly has put to death. Those small flaws for me translate into a feeling of something crafted by hands from an imperfect medium. Dust and scratches, unevenly aligned enlargers, a tong mark at the edge of paper - maybe those will become new photoshop filters that can be applied at the stroke of a keypad.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-27837493258918710052011-03-22T08:00:00.003-04:002011-03-22T08:13:45.137-04:00Kiss the Past Hello by Larry Clark<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQmjtyIVHt2EodL1TB1AwB3tL_YUKQIyIM0wUlyYwFMz45ctmz4YDQdjki4iWjNNzEQDw_6KFzUY49KQAcXZl8iHT7X5Rp0FJh7ekCmnX6voXhBFJRQVZEQtfyj3UnRjhOD9l_kwUgTOE/s1600/clarkcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 69px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQmjtyIVHt2EodL1TB1AwB3tL_YUKQIyIM0wUlyYwFMz45ctmz4YDQdjki4iWjNNzEQDw_6KFzUY49KQAcXZl8iHT7X5Rp0FJh7ekCmnX6voXhBFJRQVZEQtfyj3UnRjhOD9l_kwUgTOE/s400/clarkcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5586873337412835922" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">The idea is to put all these fucking teenage boys in one place and just finish it there. just put the whole obsession with going back in one book and maybe it will be finished, maybe I can do something else.</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:85%;" >- Larry Clark interviewed by Mike Kelly </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Larry Clark's latest is a book titled </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Kiss the Past Hello</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> which was published on the occasion of his show at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and it has one promising quality, if you missed out on <span style="font-style: italic;">Tulsa</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Teenage Lust</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Punk Picasso</span> or the <span style="font-style: italic;">Los Angeles 2003-2006 Volume 1</span> then this would be a book to fill a gap on your shelf. If you have any of those aforementioned books then this will seem nothing more than a reshuffling of the same deck of cards. Seems putting the past away is much harder for Mr. Clark since he spoke to Kelly in the late 1980s.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">No doubt Clark has produced a few great books over his lifetime and this is no small task as most suffer a sophomore slump and fade quickly. Clark obsession with youth and specifically boys comes from, in his words - a desire of wanting to "go back" and "be them" and not possess them - has remained the motivating factor in making new work in both still images, collage and films. An honest and sad confession that has made his work worth following. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">As he shifted from the drug scene into describing narcissism the pictures became looser and less edited (reminding Kelly of action painting), the next logical step for Clark was to move into film. The difficulty is, with exception of his first film Kids, the way Clark approached film has sucked some of the spontaneity out of his process with contrived plot lines and action. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">So in a way, </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Kiss the Past Hello</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> is the return to his youthful, confessionary truth that he seems to partake in every few years but no matter how many times work can be recycled, the need to republish it in a book turns him into a franchise. </span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: times new roman;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WOJXc2uNTpsrwlvQyaoW01SvczfJ-mE58VgHKi-fyEQ7JyzSE7kRNI3CQ1YKmdBpJ5xYFv5mfchhDBGGNcLMydl5mLmpFtYibEKIsy6zh-qhJnRvt9XWlNmweMHx5p-7m-YoC5hyjd8/s1600/clarkcomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 69px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WOJXc2uNTpsrwlvQyaoW01SvczfJ-mE58VgHKi-fyEQ7JyzSE7kRNI3CQ1YKmdBpJ5xYFv5mfchhDBGGNcLMydl5mLmpFtYibEKIsy6zh-qhJnRvt9XWlNmweMHx5p-7m-YoC5hyjd8/s400/clarkcomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5586873216722722818" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Kiss the Past Hello</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> will be hard for fans of Clark to resist. It comes in a box, has a nice design, a poster and a supplement booklet with several essays and the interview with Kelly. The book is fairly cheaply printed and seems like it is the quality of on-demand production even though it was printed in Antwerp. It was produced in an edition of 2500.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">If you haven't had enough of kissing the past hello you will no doubt also hear about Clark's </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Tulsa Reader 1971-2010</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> which is an 'artist book' of interviews, articles, press releases, gallery memos, letters to the editors - surrounding Larry Clark's controversial photo series, Tulsa. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I thought at first this would be something worthwhile and it might be for someone, but the content looked much less interesting than it sounds. The presentation is a thick xerox book perfect bound (basic unsewn glue binding) with floppy materials. The 'collage' aspect that seems to be touting an artist book flavor seems a stretch but I guess that is cutting it too close to defining what an 'artist book' can be. Past or present this seems like shelf filler to me. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-52670949310594489712011-03-19T09:37:00.001-04:002011-03-19T09:40:21.190-04:00Andy Warhol: Photographs<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKoJmrf9OWXkE4wIYuL9DpxBzAg2E8Jk8FQMd2ovLXwkbyHD15OTfgoWfnaIfQp67D_vG8ShTTnIDED2DlQZFzaB62mS-FeENlKoc3CF_v29K_etcJbJ-Ugs4e-obsvArFBtv0Ty3P34/s1600/warholcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 58px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKoJmrf9OWXkE4wIYuL9DpxBzAg2E8Jk8FQMd2ovLXwkbyHD15OTfgoWfnaIfQp67D_vG8ShTTnIDED2DlQZFzaB62mS-FeENlKoc3CF_v29K_etcJbJ-Ugs4e-obsvArFBtv0Ty3P34/s400/warholcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585785013101649362" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >The only show of Andy Warhol's photographs ever exhibited during his lifetime closed three weeks before his death in February of 1987. It was not a showing of polaroids or photobooth pictures, it was an exhibition of 70 black and white prints sewn together in small grids of identical repeating photos. The grids ranged from four images to twelve with the strands of thread linking them hanging loosely in the center. Robert Miller Gallery who showed the work also published <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Andy Warhol: Photographs</span> and I think its damn good - not just good, damn good.<br /><br />The central motif of repetition in Warhol's screen prints is obviously present here as are the subjects of celebrity and the mundane. In a few he directly references himself; one with a four image grid of a man opening his jacket to reveal a t-shirt with a portrait of James Dean rendered in the style of Warhol, and another where he has rephotographed a portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong.<br /><br />The book's order and facing pages are paired to link or contrast the immediate subject or to formally play off of one another; stacks of photo prints are paired with shots of leaves, lines of cars in a parking lot faces a grid of venetian blinds, a grouping of skyscrapers and porn theater posters, ceramic plates and a muscular statue, clouds photographed out a plane window face a white fur coat, the modesty of a young chinese soldier matched with a lingerie clad woman's back.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFkHOaw2QFtu97Z5Qn7zTztCjXUryujcQ_5GAQhVvp-2mlef3jApF-h3GQ6fWKp7L9_fjLnIoc3pVa2Cj-_f82Ikf0ck1RyadS5er7ieWthX3bLUokQ97KDoPm1xkPLsECLZTa4GHfXc/s1600/warholcomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 53px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFkHOaw2QFtu97Z5Qn7zTztCjXUryujcQ_5GAQhVvp-2mlef3jApF-h3GQ6fWKp7L9_fjLnIoc3pVa2Cj-_f82Ikf0ck1RyadS5er7ieWthX3bLUokQ97KDoPm1xkPLsECLZTa4GHfXc/s400/warholcomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585784874214783954" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The act of looking is challenged as our eyes fight to draw themselves from the middle of the grids to see the "whole" and at the same time the individual. The tug and pull of these images makes our focal point dart around the grids searching for a comfortable point to rest - which can be nearly impossible.<br /><br />The book itself is cleanly designed and edited by John Cheim who ten years later would start the gallery Cheim & Read. The printing is decent but be aware of the binding. After 25 years, the glue in most of these has dried out and the signatures have a tendency to split apart from one another. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-45629630918483926312011-03-16T14:12:00.002-04:002011-03-16T14:15:18.650-04:00Archeologie de la Mine by Didier Vivien<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_JDk2QVjr5lF2-W-f5r4rrmshNlKcplHfY4YMGGjcVfL-yuLDnBK2Lu6dYlIRkSnakRIe5kndtwYh_neJsm2rwUgZJA_WrE-0mQU50FjXhFkQQbzLaSfYQmWZOlL-dc3mPh_O19xfg0k/s1600/minecomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 48px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_JDk2QVjr5lF2-W-f5r4rrmshNlKcplHfY4YMGGjcVfL-yuLDnBK2Lu6dYlIRkSnakRIe5kndtwYh_neJsm2rwUgZJA_WrE-0mQU50FjXhFkQQbzLaSfYQmWZOlL-dc3mPh_O19xfg0k/s400/minecomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584742689743751442" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />I cannot read French so I am probably missing some of the nuances of Didier Vivien's <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Archeologie de la Mine</span> published by Marval in 1994 but it is compelling both in its photography and layout.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Archeologie de la Mine </span>is about a major coal mine that existed in the northern region of France bordering Belgium from 1720 until its closing in 1990. It was the main source of employment for the surrounding towns which prospered because of the richness of the coal seams. It was also the site of Europe's worst mining disaster when on March 10, 1906 an explosion killed 1100 miners.<br /><br />Vivien photographed the mine and its surrounding area in a fairly non-romantic tone considering the history and expected depictions of miners as heroic men working under miserable conditions. This is a colder view more akin to the authorless topographic-style especially when Vivien moves out of the mine buildings and into the landscape of shale heaps. The book ends with images of the transition into a suburban neighborhood complete with big box stores.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie3krOrHZyHbKLB3mhQYxUsdTAhiSbUKUqctOqQMvPVdthgoOpIyVrZohtIkYTkW7kFxEKzMjiQGQLeLk9uTI-inmqAFzQUUUovv8eu4MlznhTR7UcwmKRbeGMai_9quxsXEpIFZoShLY/s1600/minecomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 43px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie3krOrHZyHbKLB3mhQYxUsdTAhiSbUKUqctOqQMvPVdthgoOpIyVrZohtIkYTkW7kFxEKzMjiQGQLeLk9uTI-inmqAFzQUUUovv8eu4MlznhTR7UcwmKRbeGMai_9quxsXEpIFZoShLY/s400/minecomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584742533986760146" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Book-wise, the layout of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Archeologie de la Mine</span> is very well conceived. Simple full bleed square images - many on facing pages that create dynamic spreads. The printing is a decent, open rendering of a full range of tone but to the attentive viewer it can be seen as slightly inconsistent throughout the book. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Archeologie de la Mine</span> includes a short essay by Eric Wawrzyniak.<br /><br />I hadn't heard of Didier Vivien nor this book before discovering it by chance and I would be curious if anyone else out there had known of it. It seems like an overlooked gem to me.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-76076220819398982772011-02-24T12:02:00.001-05:002011-02-24T12:04:55.388-05:00Desperate Cars by Sebastien Girard<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIl8tyfdBdpmfadlIBjxbcoMmtQ1PKKGKVN6CZ6fPIvk2oMpGmVE79SEyQXM5QOL7ddjdI83OG1O5AM_BA6G9sg6oEjnCsNDlhprvNhVdSphBNdWIwfSJU8OZFqIvCD_3jzwVKzRqHbjk/s1600/desperate_cars.jpeg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 48px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIl8tyfdBdpmfadlIBjxbcoMmtQ1PKKGKVN6CZ6fPIvk2oMpGmVE79SEyQXM5QOL7ddjdI83OG1O5AM_BA6G9sg6oEjnCsNDlhprvNhVdSphBNdWIwfSJU8OZFqIvCD_3jzwVKzRqHbjk/s400/desperate_cars.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577302553549436930" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />The invention of automobiles and the invention of photography both promised a new engagement with the larger world. As gasoline powered engines and shutter driven cameras proliferated, the 'far from home' suddenly became visible. Photographers embraced autos and their presence has often become a breeding ground for meaning. From Lartigue's early car pictures which feel futuristic and offer the promise of adventure to Robert Frank's images of the car as rolling isolation booths. Cars have represented a multitude of themes from wealth and elegance to violence and rampant ecological destruction. One of my favorite titles from 2010, Sebastien Girard's <a href="http://www.sebastiengirard.com/index.php?category/Books_desperate-cars"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Desperate Cars</span></a> takes a look at the autos around his suburban neighborhood in Toulouse, France.<br /><br />There is little text at all in <a href="http://www.sebastiengirard.com/index.php?category/Books_desperate-cars"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Desperate Cars</span></a>, Girard opens with endpapers which plea 'Save Their Souls' - and follows with a concentration on the small damage and wear. Some have rolled in piss and shit; others have had their rear view mirrors smashed off; one has its bumper held on by bungee cords. It is all pretty minor - smashed windows and such - so one might ask 'who cares?'<br /><br />Other photographers have done major work on vehicles that have killed their passengers and have been twisted into shapes unrecognizable. My interest in Girard's approach extends to what I see as one of photography's flaws. There is a tendency to look to extremes and I find it a much more interesting problem to look at the subtle and make it hold your attention. I have in the past written about how I perceived Raphel Waldner's work and I do find the descriptions seductive but this work seduces me in a much more nuanced way, for instance, Girard has chosen to describe his subject in the dark and from the same distance. Throughout <a href="http://www.sebastiengirard.com/index.php?category/Books_desperate-cars"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Desperate Cars</span></a>, the scale of the objects described are almost all similar. There is no medium shot or master shot etc - they are all close-ups. This unique strategy makes the book fell like you are revolving around the vehicles - navigating not so much a photograph, but navigating around an object. He sequenced these images with a flair for great pairings that complement the content and formal play as well.<br /><br />As for the chips and bumps versus the great seven car pile-up fatality covered in crash-dust, this work is more about the wear of life rather than the moment of death. It is less common to die in a car crash than to have life simply chip away at you, like water does to stone overtime. These cars wear their damage like we wear our appendix scars.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sebastiengirard.com/index.php?category/Books_desperate-cars"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Desperate Cars</span></a> was self-published in an edition of 500. The quality is near perfect from the printing to the hand binding done by Van Waarden in the Netherlands. A signed and numbered limited edition with a print is also available. Sebastien Girard will be presenting his books and work at this year's International Photobook Festival in Kassel Germany from June 1-5th at Documenta-Halle.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-89296881505806561012011-02-21T07:28:00.003-05:002011-02-21T09:57:17.998-05:00City Metaphors by Oswald Mathias Ungers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVyfMhmtnjAoilaiXvQlvLE0ppyKjpaTTH7u6Z_ev-8m80HrYJqXUW08BT2AIO8cHXPLdQc_kqVp15RFcNdp5ut8Hna1ubZbHgg-rzu3FiwWSzlAASAMwUBwiSOePpwQU9FvAZzTT04I/s1600/ungers.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 54px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVyfMhmtnjAoilaiXvQlvLE0ppyKjpaTTH7u6Z_ev-8m80HrYJqXUW08BT2AIO8cHXPLdQc_kqVp15RFcNdp5ut8Hna1ubZbHgg-rzu3FiwWSzlAASAMwUBwiSOePpwQU9FvAZzTT04I/s400/ungers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576118877850087426" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"><br />Seen from the clouds, my old suburban neighborhood in Arizona with its dozens of cul-de-sacs must have looked like a gaggle of spermatozoa about to ride off into the sunset. Whether that was the holistic thought of the architect and land developer can't be confirmed - keep in mind it was the late 60s, early 70's though.<br /><br />I would like to be able to read maps the same way that I read photographs. Meaning, to enable my first impressions to be filled with analogies, metaphors, and symbolism but instead, the rational mind takes over and I see measured facts and deadpan reality. For the German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers however, bridging imaginative perception and a blueprint from a city planner produced a fascinating book titled <a href="http://www.buchhandlung-walther-koenig.de/cat/ungers_morphologie_city_metaphors_-_2_aufl/pid_170000000000828782.aspx"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">City Metaphors</span></a> just re-published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig.<br /><br />Originally appearing in 1982, <a href="http://www.buchhandlung-walther-koenig.de/cat/ungers_morphologie_city_metaphors_-_2_aufl/pid_170000000000828782.aspx"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">City Metaphors</span></a> presents over 50 pairings of various city maps throughout history with images from science and nature. Each of the pairings is then "titled" with a single descriptive word printed in both English and German.<br /><br />In Ungers' mind, the division of Venice becomes a handshake, a spirally designed city in India becomes the universe, the plan of the city of St Gallen, Merian from 1809 becomes a womb and so on. Easily, the formal similarities can be seen in each pairing but there is the third level of perception introduced by the title. The factual reality (the plan), the perceived reality (the image), and the conceptual reality (the word).<br /><br />As Ungers writes in his foreword; The way we experience the world around us depends on how we perceive it. Without a comprehensive vision the reality will appear as a mass of unrelated phenomenon and meaningless facts, in other words, totally chaotic. In such a world it would be like living in a vacuum; everything would be of equal importance; nothing could attract our attention; and there would be no possibility to utilize the mind.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-1764396284528402772011-01-29T10:05:00.001-05:002011-01-29T10:07:43.409-05:00Outside In by Stephen Gill<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPKTWjeK-xl8xYJfeQ9n9wfwkhV_YzDxrRLkfkfXMUvThKk9ipeQ0CuDrj3PAmfuHaDp6Pwq9KHW_EPaUZL22Ryeh9G-7euZnUwBOlUjqQNv-WCAay6fM1jwlwUv3c251w_WDfiYvpPI/s1600/gillcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPKTWjeK-xl8xYJfeQ9n9wfwkhV_YzDxrRLkfkfXMUvThKk9ipeQ0CuDrj3PAmfuHaDp6Pwq9KHW_EPaUZL22Ryeh9G-7euZnUwBOlUjqQNv-WCAay6fM1jwlwUv3c251w_WDfiYvpPI/s400/gillcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567624316659010850" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >For years Photoworks has been commissioning photographers to explore areas of the South East of England, the results of those projects often wind up as exhibitions or, more importantly in my opinion, book projects. Last year Photoworks invited a few artists to explore Brighton and three new books have been published; one by Stephen Gill, one by Rinko Kawauchi and one by Alec Soth's daughter Carmen. My favorite of the bunch is Stephen Gill's <a href="http://www.photoworksuk.org/publication/current/details.asp?pub_id=82"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Outside In</span></a>.<br /><br />With his ever present good humor and desire to think outside the box with his photography, Stephen decided to introduce material found in Brighton into the body of his cheap plastic lens camera. Thus seaweed, insects, broken glass, and garbage get in the way of his already hazy palette creating instant forms of collage.<br /><br />Now those familiar with my past opinions of Stephen's books will know that I have a way of loving the way the books look and feel but find the actual photography not as interesting. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Hackney Flowers</span> is my personal favorite, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Hackney Wick</span> I still don't understand the fascination people seem to have with that title. Ok, so it wasn't my cup of tea.<br /><br />My enjoyment of <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.photoworksuk.org/publication/current/details.asp?pub_id=82">Outside In</a> is curious to me because what I can see through all of the silhouetted objects in these pictures, the actual photographs aren't brilliant by themselves. Nor is the interplay between the objects and the image as strong as on display in Hackney Flowers, yet I am captivated by this little book. I think partly because in addition to the beauty of some of the images it provides for me fascinating puzzles of the optical properties of photography.<br /><br />How, for example, does there seem to be a piece of electronic (?) equipment inside the camera rendered as if it was itself photographed in natural light (see fifth image in comp above)? Also, I imagine that if one introduced a lot of three dimensional objects into a camera such as this, when the camera was held up to make an image, most of it would slosh down to the bottom of the camera (which would actually be the top of the frame) yet in Gill's images much of it seems to be defying gravity and evenly disbursed. I am not doubting Gill's claims of process - just aspects in some of the images confound me, albeit in pleasurable ways.<br /><br />Gill makes the analogy in his brief afterword in <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.photoworksuk.org/publication/current/details.asp?pub_id=82">Outside In</a> that these photos are like the "regurgitated contents of a giant vacuum cleaner bag." I like the thought of that. Photography already holds the potential for producing the illusion of literal and almost infinite description in "straight" practice. Gill's images seem to have physically sucked up parts of the world, shook them around unpredictably, and spilled the contents onto pieces of paper - a new order that is as messy and confounding as the world itself.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.photoworksuk.org/publication/current/details.asp?pub_id=82">Outside In</a> was published by Photoworks and the Archive of Modern Conflict.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-86664474468617558332010-12-29T10:32:00.003-05:002010-12-29T10:37:07.286-05:00Paris: Carnet de Recherche by Krass Clement<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWUUACq2HtlsZAUmix38nAfiM-ESP_bPWPxoJbwxfEnR_KaLEKpdFwHrX1wuY_7RkFgV9Q6a2RQHMi1KOjc2N9Be-OhtvDHalZlNuB9jq1vcGVk30BaDh8aL4QjhxYE2ydcEezqZ30c0/s1600/clementcomp1"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 51px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWUUACq2HtlsZAUmix38nAfiM-ESP_bPWPxoJbwxfEnR_KaLEKpdFwHrX1wuY_7RkFgV9Q6a2RQHMi1KOjc2N9Be-OhtvDHalZlNuB9jq1vcGVk30BaDh8aL4QjhxYE2ydcEezqZ30c0/s400/clementcomp1" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556127929726266386" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >Seeing the name Paris scream across the cover of Krass Clement's newest book <a href="http://www.gyldendal.dk/boeger-til-voksne/kunst-kultur/9788702101430/paris"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Paris: Carnet de Recherche</span></a> I braced myself for disappointment. The "home" of street photography has produced numerous books in the past which find themselves amounting to little beyond "greatest hits" collections of images offering syrupy nostalgia and no surprise. Clement is well aware of those familiar trappings - perhaps that is why the cover image printed right on the book's cloth shows a romantic Paris metro X-d out by a couple of steel girders. His is an uphill battle which I am delighted to see proves he is an artist who tests our expectations.<br /><br />As in the best of Clement's books, <a href="http://www.gyldendal.dk/boeger-til-voksne/kunst-kultur/9788702101430/paris"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Paris: Carnet de Recherche</span></a> is a personal journey. Starting with a suite of images entering the city by train, we pass by cold landscapes of factories in dense grey light. Upon arrival, the city itself and its citizens appear weighed down and sluggish. Light seems to fight to illuminate the architecture and streets. It is hardly a warm arrival - our first destination - an empty cafe.<br /><br />Photographed in both 35mm and square formats, Clement weaves through the city lingering for moments on small sequences of images - a woman improvises a dance in a bar that briefly lightens the mood; a protest in the streets led by youth. Interspersed are a few intimate images of women in hotel rooms, perhaps we are not traveling alone but our wanderings in the streets seem perceived through the eyes of someone longing for connection. Less for connection to place but for people.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdHu5AYIAG3KFTx5b6W9NkY3BK68hFC8EyNo9m5Zg1H7psfQPBMB2TSaCdw3X2XjiHo8yGi1G5Pk72CDis8JI0slRbov9EDRj2aFpPvNxcvTvT2fLCOWRG-754EBTahJjQJ6Mp9apm2Fk/s1600/clementcomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 46px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdHu5AYIAG3KFTx5b6W9NkY3BK68hFC8EyNo9m5Zg1H7psfQPBMB2TSaCdw3X2XjiHo8yGi1G5Pk72CDis8JI0slRbov9EDRj2aFpPvNxcvTvT2fLCOWRG-754EBTahJjQJ6Mp9apm2Fk/s400/clementcomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556127799706123586" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In many of Clement's books of the past there is an obvious filmic quality. The repetition of images allows the subtlety of events to play out with surprising result without feeling indulgent. Following the gestures of a man swallowing a drink while two women gossip in the background is resonant in its simplicity. There is less of that "step by step" quality here which I find often so powerful, but I suppose it is due to when these images were made in his life as a photographer. Photographed in the 60s and 70s these would consist of early works of Clement's perhaps done before he was fully conscious of the methods he would employ in his later work and bookcraft. Here the sequence at times feels like a stream of jump-cuts and can appear sporadic. This might have been a fatal flaw to the book had Clement not been the great photographer he is. Still, he finds the connections between the individual frames to form links that, for the observant, will not disappoint. The end picture of a sequence of nighttime streets protests of youths burning a car is of a small wedding party where the wedding dress and veil reflect the previous conflagration. In another pairing, a woman on a subway hangs on the arm of a lover while on the facing page, a woman supports a dress she is offering for sale at a street market.<br /><br />Bookwise, <a href="http://www.gyldendal.dk/boeger-til-voksne/kunst-kultur/9788702101430/paris"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Paris: Carnet de Recherche</span></a> is beautifully done. The publisher Gyldendal which releases many of Clemen't books has again done a superb job with design and printing. One relief is that there is no introductory text nor afterword - the photographs are allowed to stand on their own as an open-ended journey.<br /><br />Clement's <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Novemberreisse</span> from 2008 was one of my favorite books of the year and I was happy to see <a href="http://www.gyldendal.dk/boeger-til-voksne/kunst-kultur/9788702101430/paris"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Paris: Carnet de Recherche</span></a> appear as a "best of" suggestion by a couple people in the comments of my 2010 list. It was a steady contender for inclusion on mine as well but it has taken me some extra time to fully appreciate its nuances. Like most of Clement's best, it is a slow and quiet burn that lingers long after the covers are closed.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-50375907043255742132010-12-14T14:15:00.000-05:002010-12-15T14:19:21.811-05:00Dear Knights and Dark Horses by Thomas Roma<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8fKPHyvj2sjoKLGk8Y6Lh2WCSoHRgxAZwuT7lKP8c4pjS5tAvE4Cw18rc2u0zxbPLJ6NDGkRMoJsiL9pSuIgVCqkkai8iMv89oOXRvnffVOhd66t8-9zQ5qpMzwM36SK1yo6Q8Jl56Gk/s1600/DearKnightscomp.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 55px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8fKPHyvj2sjoKLGk8Y6Lh2WCSoHRgxAZwuT7lKP8c4pjS5tAvE4Cw18rc2u0zxbPLJ6NDGkRMoJsiL9pSuIgVCqkkai8iMv89oOXRvnffVOhd66t8-9zQ5qpMzwM36SK1yo6Q8Jl56Gk/s400/DearKnightscomp.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550990041069463266" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." - <span style="font-size:85%;">Thomas Wolfe</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">In 2005 I agreed to make some photographs for a non-profit organization concerned with returning veterans who were facing homlessness. For various reasons they had fallen through most societal safety nets after being denied their military benefits and were then living in shelters or worse, on the streets of New York. I was put in touch with a man living on Staten Island who's disability benefits had been revoked. What he did initially get in benefits from the government was now being asked to be paid back. Broke and unemployed, he and his young family were facing eviction from their home.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">We talked and smoked cigarettes on his front porch while I made a handful of pictures. He was 29 and had spent two tours of duty in combat in Iraq. He spoke openly and even with excitement about his friends who were still serving as if he had just returned from an amazing and successful fishing trip. He asked if I would like to see some of his photographs.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">On his laptop he previewed for me hundreds of images; his friends posing with futuristic weaponry and displaying a bravado that belied any apprehension. Interspersed were dozens of images of bodies of Iraqis strewn along the roadsides and in ditches. I say the word "bodies" but they looked more like rumpled bedsheets of skin with a limb or bone protruding indicating it was once a human being. He revealed no emotion but his pace slowed to half time, lingering on the photos of the bodies longer than his friends. I masked my inability to stomach his slideshow by staring at his hand working the computer mouse. I asked him if he looked at these pictures often and he said "all the time." Almost sounding hurt he added that his wife wouldn't look at them with him. He also mentioned he wished he could go back and serve a third tour or longer. He had found something inside himself there that he seemed to long for now that he was safe at home. I think of that man as I look through Thomas Roma's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576875539?ie=UTF8&tag=5b4photandboo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1576875539%22%3EDear%20Knights%20and%20Dark%20Horses%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=5b4photandboo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1576875539%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20%21important;%20margin:0px%20%21important;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Dear Knights and Dark Horses</span></a> published this year by Powerhouse.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">How photographers shape their personal protests vary greatly. Some book a flight and search out access to war to photograph directly and other do so in a more nuanced way. Roma is not a photojournalist. His book is a quieter, less immediately sensational protest, but none the less powerful. For those unaware, Roma has been photographing in Brooklyn for thirty years and is a prolific bookmaker. He is not a world traveller and rarely leaves home to make photographs. What connects him to home, his values, and desires, is woven into the texture of his pictures. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">In January of 2004 Roma photographed Army National Guardsmen of the 258th Field Artillery Regiment as they were about to be deployed to Iraq from Jamaica, Queens in New York City. He pairs these portraits with a collection of pictures of coin-operated pony rides that can be found outside of many convenience markets and drug stores in his home city of Brooklyn. Divided in the book - the pony rides first, then the soldier portraits afterward - the pictures metaphorically comment on bravery, past youth and the moment felt when required to leave home. It avoids glamorizing war and bravery, instead concentrating on the individuals without depicting them with pity. These are the same men we sit next to on the subway, stand in line behind at the bank, or work beside. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">If we associate youth with going to war, one will be surprised to see that a majority of these portraits are of men who appear to be older than expected. Perhaps some signed up for the National Guard with the intention of taking advantage of college money or a paycheck, playing the odds that history wouldn't thrust them into combat. Decked out in fatigues and loaded down with equipment, there is a weighty sluggishness present in the postures which I find unsettling. They are momentarily frozen like their dime-store counterparts waiting to be set into action. In front of Roma's camera, they look off towards an uncertain future while background details sometimes foreshadow their vulnerability. In one image, a ghostly disembodied leg marches through Roma's slow exposure.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The size, the sing-song title, and the simplicity of presentation of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576875539?ie=UTF8&tag=5b4photandboo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1576875539%22%3EDear%20Knights%20and%20Dark%20Horses%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=5b4photandboo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1576875539%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20%21important;%20margin:0px%20%21important;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Dear Knights and Dark Horses</span></a>, share qualities that might bring to mind it is book meant for children. One could argue it is. It is a parable of how experiences change our lives. Most of us will never go to war, our lives will change and our perspectives shift through less life threatening means. War however seems to change people like a blunt instrument. Like the man I met in 2005, they come back changed forever. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-48754174824766361792010-12-03T09:29:00.003-05:002010-12-03T09:36:56.771-05:00Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream by Jindřich Štyrský<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKt24U3T8Z7AtjYZwVUwtRb_D_2pqGiXI3HAQO8VoffjgshZWRFV5KwNE5vmf1Yk0zDXmPtHBVn07v5Qf2plpOWHE2W4VjS9fRwCthum6AunTMbk7SUgJsUo-XIsJDQt0GpDcdtuM7tc/s1600/styrskytorstcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 57px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKt24U3T8Z7AtjYZwVUwtRb_D_2pqGiXI3HAQO8VoffjgshZWRFV5KwNE5vmf1Yk0zDXmPtHBVn07v5Qf2plpOWHE2W4VjS9fRwCthum6AunTMbk7SUgJsUo-XIsJDQt0GpDcdtuM7tc/s400/styrskytorstcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546463995565188114" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />While in Prague last Spring I found a facsimile reprint of Jindřich Štyrský's <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Emilie přichází ke mně ve snu</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream</span>) published by Torst in 2001.<br /><br />Originally published in 1933, only approximately 20 known copies remain of Emilie přichází ke mně ve snu. Štyrský was a painter, poet, photographer, collage artist and editor. A founding member of The Surrealist Group of Chechoslovakia he edited for the Erotiká Revue that included illustrations by well-known Czech artists and had an imprint called Edice 69 (Edition 69) where Emilie přichází ke mně ve snu appeared as volume 6.<br /><br />Štyrský was fascinated by dreams and recorded his own through writing, and later, drawings. For him, the dream state was a storehouse of motifs that he would join together in collage and painting until his death in 1942.<br /><br />Styrsky's imagery is a blurring between the erotic and the morbid. Using hardcore porn clipped from German and English stereo-cards and books, Styrsky disassociates sex from procreation and conceives of it from a purely pleasure giving point of view. The incongruous elements of plant details, a parachute and starry backgrounds emphasize the orgasmic while skeletons, men in gas masks, coffins and disembodied eyes draw a more sinister tone. Styrsky may have been poking fun at puritans who certainly would have been enraged by the montages by including the darker elements. As Bohuslav Brouk wrote in his afterword for Emilie; <span style="font-style: italic;">"People who hide their sexuality despise their innate capabilities without being able to rise above them. They deny their mortality...Any illusion to to their animality, not only in life, but also in science, literature and art, wounds them because it disturbs their day-dreaming."</span><br /><br />This reprint brings together 12 photo-montage, the introductory erotic dreamscape written by Styrsky about Emilie, the afterword by Brouk and a modern essay by Karel Srp written in 2001. The original edition included just 10 photomontages, Styrky's story and the Brouk afterword. Two plates from the series which were edited out of the original might have been excluded because of suspected child pornography. Those two have been included here.<br /><br />The book is printed on paper I imagine was chosen to reflect the original, it is matte in finish and the typesetting seems to also reflect the older edition as well. The original however consisted of the ten plates tipped onto the page and not printed.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrEJkPmvUgjtNPDCfuQEJsHbHQ35695dkjsVde_Q0So3I7jq2bBzezBsyDl9NwZXs93M7Dk2eBFUgx2Qabh5_gs5b4ntUD_DU7lc0qAX2UUA_7i-I0h8tQ9L_zBfRrmNQPXJo9fb9sRzc/s1600/styrskyubucomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 72px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrEJkPmvUgjtNPDCfuQEJsHbHQ35695dkjsVde_Q0So3I7jq2bBzezBsyDl9NwZXs93M7Dk2eBFUgx2Qabh5_gs5b4ntUD_DU7lc0qAX2UUA_7i-I0h8tQ9L_zBfRrmNQPXJo9fb9sRzc/s400/styrskyubucomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546463616625868114" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Another edition I discovered of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Emilie přichází ke mně ve snu</span> was printed for the Ubu Gallery in 1997. This edition features a black cover, is slightly larger in size than the original (only about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in height and width) and is printed on a glossier paper stock. This edition includes the same texts as the original translated into English. The original texts were in Czech. This edition also includes the two additional controversial plates. It was published in an edition of 1000.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Note: Thanks to Charlie Rhyne for informing me about the Ubu Gallery edition.</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-88307661836953143632010-11-30T08:33:00.003-05:002012-12-19T13:32:29.805-05:00A New American Picture by Doug Rickard<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMuDkGsi4cXYqvL1UVJkE_EmtdFy4E4blm3Fj_bN3WouWaPpV9ePyp21nZqLPzfgs1XA2zmUvyo4RRGhKqPdtCATwyyu95dcgD55D4We-LhGno6LjP5UOA29DRqFYZ96nlYSCa-AWAOs/s1600/rickardcomp1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545335653211003458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMuDkGsi4cXYqvL1UVJkE_EmtdFy4E4blm3Fj_bN3WouWaPpV9ePyp21nZqLPzfgs1XA2zmUvyo4RRGhKqPdtCATwyyu95dcgD55D4We-LhGno6LjP5UOA29DRqFYZ96nlYSCa-AWAOs/s400/rickardcomp1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 62px; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman; font-size: 100%;"><br />The older notions of photographers physically exploring their world may have in some ways come to pass. The Egglestons, Shores, Levitts, Winogrands ventured out with perhaps only the loosest intentions or framework of a "project" and allowed the world to provide. It is common now for artists to conceive of a project first and then impose that view almost filter-like upon what they are looking at. I would never argue that one approach is better than the other as long as - in the case of the latter - the work doesn't become a mere illustration of an idea. For me, I learned photography through an ability to trust in the world and a rather strong distrust of "ideas," so clever frameworks rarely excite unless the work from image to image surprises and transcends. Doug Rickard's work in his book <a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/RicDoueAN06296.html"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A New American Picture</span></a> has me excited, perhaps a bit disturbed, and completely captivated.<br /><br />Rickard's work on this project has a clever framework. He has been exploring the world through Google street views. Google has been mapping the world from the vantage point of the center of its streets. The camera, tethered to a GPS system, is mounted on a car and takes wide angle images every twenty feet or so from a fixed height of about 7 feet. The user of Google's street views can not only pan 360 degrees but pan up and down and zoom in on a part of the image. The final images are run through facial recognition software which attempts to blur the faces of people unintentionally recorded when the camera car passed by.<br /><br />Surveillance cameras in banks or on city streets have the potential to record an image which is as worthy of high praise as any made by Frank or Evans. So is the case of the billions of snapshots made around the world every day from amateurs. Rickard has been sifting through Google's images to - like any photographer working in the streets - find interesting things to stare at and photograph them off of his computer monitor. In terms of street photography, several factors have been taken away; one is timing as the photographs are triggered by the GPS system when the car passes over a specific coordinate and the second is vantage point, so the usual "finding out where to stand" element is off the table as well.<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/RicDoueAN06296.html"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A New American Picture</span></a>, which through its title and chosen locations I sense a nod towards Evans's <span style="font-style: italic;">American Photographs</span>, you will find hints of the historical reference points which have certainly informed Rickard's work. The photographers I mentioned in the first paragraph are brought to mind and Rickard's attraction to a certain color palate is common to the 1970s photographers working in color, especially Eggleston.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc2yzfary5b4wuDicls77Ewk-8agm94LLsuyMfVgBVmpvGmEHNgD4uaO14x-frQNSJ_EjJga3r1aa-vsikc_kLp7KAWIXm_aCcit2AJ8gKnAtXii67NGzsJ07HvqJe1_-DsttzNWXzfBs/s1600/rickardcomp2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545335550297592834" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc2yzfary5b4wuDicls77Ewk-8agm94LLsuyMfVgBVmpvGmEHNgD4uaO14x-frQNSJ_EjJga3r1aa-vsikc_kLp7KAWIXm_aCcit2AJ8gKnAtXii67NGzsJ07HvqJe1_-DsttzNWXzfBs/s400/rickardcomp2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 63px; width: 400px;" /></a><br /><br />A grid of these images are on display at the new <a href="http://www.le-bal.fr/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Le Bal</span></a> museum in Paris alongside Anthony Hernandez, Lewis Baltz, Chauncey Hare, Walker Evans and others and I was struck by how the splayed perspective of the camera-car's wide angle lens (which seems to be around a 24mm in 35mm terms) echoed Hare's interiors or the field of view from Hernandez's Los Angeles bus stop images. This wide field of view presents interesting photographic problems that fascinated artists like Garry Winogrand - one of which is asking the question of how small can an element such as body language or gesture be and still carry some of the weight of an image. In most of Rickard's choices people are reduced to basic features which rely on such elements for meaning.<br /><br />The places he has chosen to "google" were often spots Rickard has physically traveled to at one time or another and then when back at home, looked for that same place on street views. Most often he is drawn to the outskirts of cities where the fabric of society is being tested by poverty and run down infrastructure. A majority of the citizens caught in his frames are black, the homes bring to mind the bleakness of Evans's descriptions of depression era houses - an appropriate concentration on the part of Rickard considering the recent economic blight in America.<br /><br />If I find flaw in <a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/RicDoueAN06296.html"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A New American Picture</span></a>, it is with the edit. I happened to see a talk on this work with David Campany and Sebastian Hau at <a href="http://www.le-bal.fr/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Le Bal</span></a> and if my memory serves me, there were several images I found captivating in that slideshow which are missing here in the book. The book does have a page noting Plates 1-69 which seems to hint at further volumes and Campany mentioned editing the <a href="http://www.le-bal.fr/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Le Bal</span></a> exhibition from over 300 of Rickard's images. This edit favors more images of a single person alone in the landscape which I find a bit repetitive.<br /><br />I have heard that there might be a larger publisher planning a different book of this same work but either way, it is books like these which show that the history of the photobook is still moving forward and Parr/Badger should start working on volume III.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-61321475426177490112010-10-25T13:43:00.004-04:002010-10-25T13:48:16.572-04:00Lewis Baltz: Works<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODNdUy5YWnV3HFBiYOGcZpieZTRzrdm7Uzp8HbOXajH_EzSGZZBbQT8owqY3J8AU15YqUCX7hw1x9-wGr9OacRpwkNf-TQbvt6QzzPHIKrNQeytGecm9XL7jOND4ZJwfZn51eSNiEg0Q/s1600/baltzcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 58px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODNdUy5YWnV3HFBiYOGcZpieZTRzrdm7Uzp8HbOXajH_EzSGZZBbQT8owqY3J8AU15YqUCX7hw1x9-wGr9OacRpwkNf-TQbvt6QzzPHIKrNQeytGecm9XL7jOND4ZJwfZn51eSNiEg0Q/s400/baltzcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5532040906828778210" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Have you ever had a night of pure gluttony? Ever sat down, watching for instance the playoffs for the World Series - seeing both your hometown and adopted town lose - on your lap is a half gallon of ice cream and in your right hand, a spoon. You keep making a mental note that you shouldn't have anymore because the carton is three quarters empty and the edge of your spoon-hand is practically a plaster cast of sugar. Yet you take another spoonful and press the substance to the roof of your mouth making those little half swallows like a baby suckling a breast. While savoring the flavor, the coolness or the slight grit to the ice on our tongue, your hand automatically motions downward for another shovel full. You feel slightly disgusted with yourself. That is how I felt as I kept methodically turning pages of every book in my first choice for <span style="font-style: italic;">Book(s) of the Year</span> - the <a href="http://www.steidlville.com/books/1104-Lewis-Baltz-WORKS.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lewis Baltz: Works</span></a> box set from Steidl. I couldn't stop. Just one more picture. Then another, and another, and another, as if the books would disappear off my shelf the following morning.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">It probably comes as no surprise that I have been a fan of Lewis Baltz since art school and have sought out his books over the years. I saw him speak once in the late 90s where he recounted a story about showing John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art his <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">New Industrial Parks</span> photographs. While looking at the photos John had made three piles of pictures - when he was finished he showed Lewis the prints the museum would want to purchase. Lewis said he was a bit offended and said they would have to buy all of the set or none - it wasn't divisible. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I shyly asked Lewis about this after the lecture because I didn't understand why he was so offended about John choosing images. I asked "isn't that a curator's job to chose images etc." Baltz responded with a few elegantly worded sentences, 50% of which I couldn't understand because of my stunted vocabulary but what I did comprehend without a dictionary was the idea that dividing up the work could contextualize it differently than if it were kept together. Would a painter cut a canvas if the curator only wanted a section? (Ray Johnson would but who else?). Baltz asked if we could continue the conversation outside so he could smoke but I took the opportunity to slink back into the crowd and disappear being that, although he was extremely nice (Michael Schmidt once described him "with oriental politeness"), I felt completely intimidated by him.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I think I partly respond so strongly to Baltz and Robert Adams and maybe to a lesser extent, Gossage, because the describe landscapes that seem so familiar because I grew up in Arizona where construction/expansion and destruction are linked. Where ideas of money outweigh all common sense. I would ride my bike through entire neighborhoods with paved roads and cul-de-sacs but no homes to be seen - the investors pulled out just before any foundations were laid.</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: times new roman;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAa-sBXorUKnHQKVTz3REO6AbfYfjX99VOYTUvinusp0osRPKutUlYWMTNLyB7vvifKZCXs-vkbyuwSylwqHZYz07_gpxrfD5kam4JfleY2YYGvJem9P2pAloF0Tr81jrA2x7HbSx3BQ/s1600/baltzcomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 68px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAa-sBXorUKnHQKVTz3REO6AbfYfjX99VOYTUvinusp0osRPKutUlYWMTNLyB7vvifKZCXs-vkbyuwSylwqHZYz07_gpxrfD5kam4JfleY2YYGvJem9P2pAloF0Tr81jrA2x7HbSx3BQ/s400/baltzcomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5532040762437258082" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The dividing line between nature and suburb was defined by where paved roads bled into dirt and the no-mans-land strip where people would drag their refuse into the desert for illegal dumping. To come across a sun-blistered washing machine miles from the nearest home in the desert feels like stumbling across a crime scene - violence sensed in the shimmering heat off its surface. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Three books of this ten volume set were released a few years ago through the Whitney Museum and RAM - <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Prototype Works</span>, and <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Tract Houses</span>. This set includes; <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Park City</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Nevada</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Maryland</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">San Quentin Point</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Sites of Technology</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Near Reno </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Continuous Fire Polar Circle</span>. The only large body of work that is missing is <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Candlestick Point</span> which I assume was excluded because it is Baltz's only book which is not in a square format.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">In comparing some of my older first editions to these some differences can be seen. Firstly, the printing always looked good to my eye with Baltz's books but compared to these new Steidl printings, the plates are more open and yet retain their richness revealing more detail. In <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Park City</span>, Baltz has moved the captions opposite the images much like in his <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">New Industrial Parks</span> book rather than as a list before the plates start. He also replaced the Gus Blaisdell essay - in the original edition, a "Foreword" which appears afterward - with a newer essay by Hubertus van Amelunxen. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Maryland</span>, which was released originally as a booklet from the Corcoran Gallery of Art as a part of the 1976 exhibition The Nation's Capital in Photographs, shows all of the images from the exhibition in their correct order since the catalogue, for whatever reason, is sequenced out of order. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Nevada</span>, a 1978 Castelli gallery catalogue I never owned so I cannot compare but this version contains 15 images and I imagine is the same.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">All follow the same design and size, all are covered in cloth the color of freshly poured concrete. It was printed in 1100 copies all of which are signed and numbered. I had heard this will be a quick sell out so I hope some of you that can afford the price can still manage to get a <a href="http://www.steidlville.com/books/1104-Lewis-Baltz-WORKS.html">set</a>.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-25991960561750206642010-10-10T22:44:00.004-04:002010-10-10T22:52:26.409-04:00Three Annual Reports from Ringier<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtPR0f7_-NuW8aX8uIuDeCsXbaSyypMbkBEj0kqO2cHotasENJtlv0iUwanMBpEvbe__1T3PgmQxw_AUtkif5ig1tShH8JXapIvDsyprnu9qModQyWgdpTUHKG4FmrMA2JeR16cvVI0X4/s1600/baldessaricomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 46px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtPR0f7_-NuW8aX8uIuDeCsXbaSyypMbkBEj0kqO2cHotasENJtlv0iUwanMBpEvbe__1T3PgmQxw_AUtkif5ig1tShH8JXapIvDsyprnu9qModQyWgdpTUHKG4FmrMA2JeR16cvVI0X4/s400/baldessaricomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526614652007216930" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />The Swiss-based media company Ringier founded in 1833 has for several years published over 400 fine art books under their imprint JRP Ringier with the likes of Richard Prince, John Baldessari, Louise Bourgeois, Fischli and Weiss and others. What some might not know is that Ringier commissions an artist each year to spice up the corporate droll of their annual reports. Some of these titles are later released for sale (minus the company's financial graphs and information) as artist books but recently I picked up a few of the actual annual reports. Often these differ slightly from the "released" version of the book but they are interesting none the less.<br /><br />The first is the latest from 2009, John Baldessari's <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Parse</span>. As you know from some of my past postings I am a big fan of Baldessari and <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Parse</span> is a new favorite. Working from a large and seemingly endless archive of film stills he "processes" the images by cropping, clipping and juxtaposing them into new visual realizations. Often full of humor and absurdity, they create new narratives like a badly acted B movie.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2MxphfBvU5jjGFSvcIBjZfzdXV1O6cchAUIo97o10xcjMz0M5Pt1Kcf9Ym9-L66e7amEddPrHCyCHgwxD54r8XIa6uClKANX2eEMhfo8rm0eCdVYbEegR94ZC_0QYf-em-7m8AQ2iDY/s1600/baldessaricomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 54px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2MxphfBvU5jjGFSvcIBjZfzdXV1O6cchAUIo97o10xcjMz0M5Pt1Kcf9Ym9-L66e7amEddPrHCyCHgwxD54r8XIa6uClKANX2eEMhfo8rm0eCdVYbEegR94ZC_0QYf-em-7m8AQ2iDY/s400/baldessaricomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526614508641508578" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Within the "chapters" of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Parse</span>, Baldessari reveals the original picture in its un-cropped fullness. This can have the effect of a mental flashback where the viewer rests for a moment on the "real" context of the original yet recognizes that the original is as strange as his processed edited version. The way Baldessari designed each page in Parse makes for a fascinating panorama of images where the flow of his fragmented language compels the viewer to make connections.<br /><br />This "report" edition varies from the released artist book in paper stock and binding. This version is softcover with a thick cardstock covers which for this somewhat thick book makes for a flimsy shell. This is not really a criticism, as it's drooping and floppy nature, for me, is as enjoyably unruly to hold as his images are to decipher.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggS41AGwiO3ben6yz-bt7_VMl2Ax53OhQbzSdeHcYnReOYVrztDemOrq2lxJzPtEXB5MhlnV-a9fPnBPEvFxmROVO5we4MtebbyhihHzN4acqS6hn9DbNU1a7vRlIxNxhyJlG51aCB_q4/s1600/princecomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 48px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggS41AGwiO3ben6yz-bt7_VMl2Ax53OhQbzSdeHcYnReOYVrztDemOrq2lxJzPtEXB5MhlnV-a9fPnBPEvFxmROVO5we4MtebbyhihHzN4acqS6hn9DbNU1a7vRlIxNxhyJlG51aCB_q4/s400/princecomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526614298732971682" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The second I received is a report from 2005 created by Richard Prince called <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Jokes and Cartoons</span>.<br /><br />Made up of clippings, paintings and emails, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Jokes and Cartoons</span> repeats a hand full of old gags based on social cliches and expectations engendered by the cultural mainstream. As Prince has said of his material: "Jokes and cartoons are a part of any mainstream magazine. They're right up there with the editorial and advertisements and table of contents and letters to the editors. They're part of the layout, part of the 'sights' and 'gags.' Sometimes they are political, sometimes they just make fun of everyday life. Once in a while they drive people to protest and storm foreign embassies and kill people."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMwVSCN9mLWN1Fh51F3CiuaamynInF9lHnxVrru_9LLLWmsKVJYgFVYH9zqPMUFp_7KcOGJxTqcDq8fy26hgpFmkg4PWdzpRjdByvhtiVSke3v8K1sib3J-vM6UXtXmKObB47llT9Zt2M/s1600/mircomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 47px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMwVSCN9mLWN1Fh51F3CiuaamynInF9lHnxVrru_9LLLWmsKVJYgFVYH9zqPMUFp_7KcOGJxTqcDq8fy26hgpFmkg4PWdzpRjdByvhtiVSke3v8K1sib3J-vM6UXtXmKObB47llT9Zt2M/s400/mircomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526614154544029218" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The third report is the oldest from 2002, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">HELLO...</span> created by the artist Alexandra Mir. If the Baldessari is my favorite, this one runs a close second.<br /><br />Mir, in trolling through the picture archives of Ringier has created a daisy chain of images where each picture, often a family snapshot or press image includes two people. The person on the right side of the frame connects to the following image where that person appears with a third person which connects to a fourth person and on and on and on. As Ringier is a company has been family owned from its beginnings, this chain work starts with a picture Hans and Annette Ringier on the cover and moves through a world of public figures including the artist herself. Eventually, the chain comes full circle where the last photograph include Hans Ringier again, of course on the right side of the frame connecting him to the cover image - and round and round we go a second time.<br /><br />This report over its 60 pages makes only a couple hundred connections but the structure of this could potentially amount to a lifetime's work of connections made that encircle the span of the world's photographed population. Skiing is a repeated motif which, for me, appropriately accentuates the ease in which Mir presents these often cleaver connections of people.<br /><br />Other reports that haven't been released for sale include works by Josh Smith, Richard Phillips, Matt Mullican, Christopher Williams, Liam Gillick, Harold F. Müller, and Christian Philipp Müller.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-26290596416232862602010-10-07T09:03:00.000-04:002010-10-08T09:08:50.293-04:00Der Rote Bulli and Eyes Look Through You<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowV-RBk2kjjG7dWdCilnjzNPgsc5C8ByBMguIpspYI8amceN1T_BonmyVcBHbs2isTrMj4NnNhyphenhyphenOGSEIaLqDrCvsf54C8-H4LIRYO-ZNK5AsWu28UDdKN_WuNJu5lhIC73naJCEWdmNc/s1600/derrotebullicomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 62px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowV-RBk2kjjG7dWdCilnjzNPgsc5C8ByBMguIpspYI8amceN1T_BonmyVcBHbs2isTrMj4NnNhyphenhyphenOGSEIaLqDrCvsf54C8-H4LIRYO-ZNK5AsWu28UDdKN_WuNJu5lhIC73naJCEWdmNc/s400/derrotebullicomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525660473874623650" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />This year I was invited to contribute a couple essays to books that are currently available. Since blogging is more or less pressure-free, I accepted these challenges with great apprehension but I'm fairly happy with the results. You be the judge.<br /><br />The larger of the two is a brick-like catalog from the NRW Forum Dusseldorf called <a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/ShoSteDer06239.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Der Rote Bulli: Stephen Shore and the New Dusseldorf Photography</span></a>. This is an exhibition curated and edited by Christoph Schaden and Werner Lippert on the occasion of Dusseldorf's Quadrennial 2010 that examines the generations of photographers that have studied at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf under Bernd and Hilla Becher. At its heart, is the transatlantic dialogue between Germany and the United States that rose due to the influence of Stephen Shore's work that would appear in his landmark book Uncommon Places.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/ShoSteDer06239.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Der Rote Bulli</span></a> - The Red Bully - refers to the red Volkswagon van that appears in Stephen Shore's photograph Church Street and Second Street, Easton, Pennsylvania, June 20, 1974. This image was made on the first day Shore used an 8 x 10 camera that he had been given by the influential Metropolitan Museum curator Weston Neuf after Shore set off to the industrial regions of Pennsylvania. He had made only one previous photograph before setting up his tripod on Church street, a straight on portrait of Easton resident Nicholas Bader wearing an unbuttoned pink shirt. In that image, Bader stares directly into the lens with a questioning gaze, presumably a mirrored reflection of Shore's own expression as he was depressing the shutter - figuring out how this new tool would greatly shift his approach to photographing.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWFtcxb5BO2PFIz1bg086doD2lDoWkF-VH2qkTAZGFZDvA3haZ_5dRwDr9efbe2iCZWXVUIfbkqsZWm5qiBOBcwXZCiOpEBubh0PEUueRaWLLUoIhdSMl7AkK6Oywx5qS_ozhPUqXYEJc/s1600/derrotebullicomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 60px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWFtcxb5BO2PFIz1bg086doD2lDoWkF-VH2qkTAZGFZDvA3haZ_5dRwDr9efbe2iCZWXVUIfbkqsZWm5qiBOBcwXZCiOpEBubh0PEUueRaWLLUoIhdSMl7AkK6Oywx5qS_ozhPUqXYEJc/s400/derrotebullicomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525660351860882594" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In Schaden's book and exhibition, the Church street image becomes an important marker that would connect the German and US dialogue on current practice. One year after the Church street picture was made it appeared in the legendary New Topographics show in Rochester. The Becher's, who were the only European photographers to have work in the show, had seen the image and eventually purchased a print of it for their own collection soon thereafter. Whatever the presumed attraction they might have had to that particular image, one superficial link is interesting to note, they had also owned an identical red VW van in which they had logged thousands of miles documenting industrial architecture until Bernd's death in 2007.<br /><br />In examining Shore's influence on the Becher students of the Art Academy in Dusseldorf, Schaden has chosen a smart edit of images from the expected stars (Gursky, Struth, Ruff, Hutte, Hofer), but more importantly, from unexpected or less familiar artists like Volker Dohne, Wendelin Bottlander, Tata Ronkholz, Andi Brenner, Claus Goedicke. This is an important inclusion since the Becher's taught almost 80 masters students between 1976 and 1998.<br /><br />Several texts accompany this 344 page book, including essays by Christoph Schaden, Maren Polte, Gerald Schroder and mine on the reception of the Becher's work in the United States between 1968 and 1991. My essay is based on, and indebted to, the in-depth two year research by Christoph Schaden on the various ways the work was perceived here in the US which often ran in opposition to how the Bechers saw their work.<br /><br />The exhibition in Dusseldorf will be on-view at the NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft in Dusseldorf until January 16, 2011.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-Uuezd6eES9oIIknC4LadNGNvb-AhXz1MmKFp3y5bjAN1VOw_ZHbiMUBFKgABXVMuAgcoZEWtjeXMLcyZ8Xtj5v0G-jMBZViWIsTGakk_RiWyXeAfFvovPOyIWsdpGkubhr_Cvwrx_w/s1600/partincomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 58px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-Uuezd6eES9oIIknC4LadNGNvb-AhXz1MmKFp3y5bjAN1VOw_ZHbiMUBFKgABXVMuAgcoZEWtjeXMLcyZ8Xtj5v0G-jMBZViWIsTGakk_RiWyXeAfFvovPOyIWsdpGkubhr_Cvwrx_w/s400/partincomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525660229396908610" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The other book I contributed to is <a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/ParTedEye06176.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Eyes Look Through You</span></a> from the Brooklyn-based photographer Ted Partin who was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany.<br /><br />For the last decade Partin has been photographing his friends and extended tribe in Brooklyn and elsewhere with the lush description from an 8 x10 camera. His subjects, mostly thirty-somethings around the age of Partin himself, persuade us to see their individualism in these intimate portraits. Neither completely real (Partin often directs his subjects) nor consciously conceived fictions, his pictures sit within a territory where the dividing line between the innocent and perverse, reality and fantasy, is often blurred.<br /><br />His subjects aren't fearful of presenting their personal idiosyncrasies to his camera or the larger world in general. They tattoo their bodies and modify themselves in the hopes of shaping their personal identities. In the image that graces the cover, a boyish-looking young woman lays on a table as the tattooist's gun, barely perceptible, works on her shoulder. She gazes as calm as if simply deep in thought. Pain has become a commonplace experience that is endured, perhaps even invited. This is one thread which links many of Partin's photographs; life is full of discomfort, arm yourself and adapt, get used to it.<br /><br />Partin acknowledges that sitting before a camera creates a level of discomfort for most of his subjects, so why not work within this emotional space and use the effect to the picture's advantage? This sentiment is felt by noticing how many of Partin's subjects find themselves posing upon uncomfortable looking surfaces. Tabletops, asphalt rooftops, sidewalks, iron gratings echo of the world's hardness.<br /><br />What do we ultimately take away from Partin's pursuit? His pictures persuade us to see individuals, giving them volume and weight. Beyond age difference, tattoos or clothing we enter a common human exchange as if meeting someone face to face. Their image is to be considered and though photographs do not allow us to fully "know" these people in any real sense, we draw a resounding connection through their poignancy, in hope of knowing just a little more about ourselves through their presence.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/ParTedEye06176.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Eyes Look Through You</span></a> is hardcover and includes two essays and a transcript of an interview between Partin and Sylvia Martin, the exhibition's curator.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-16518185025983917512010-09-27T11:35:00.008-04:002010-09-30T14:25:38.900-04:00How Terry Likes His Coffee by Florian van Roekel<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhU-O0K3BmSlegyPI4ATd5QK__3_3eH3zrDUnFVVzc12hAMuoAYOfvynUFYa7Gg97XX4n5PPFrDBTyITh9X282-1zn9iAnCANr6GEtVE7GP0LSxI_YbKrbdCx06Gq7zK075YxX-gF6a0/s1600/coffeecomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 40px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhU-O0K3BmSlegyPI4ATd5QK__3_3eH3zrDUnFVVzc12hAMuoAYOfvynUFYa7Gg97XX4n5PPFrDBTyITh9X282-1zn9iAnCANr6GEtVE7GP0LSxI_YbKrbdCx06Gq7zK075YxX-gF6a0/s400/coffeecomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521617728358197010" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I am not dead and neither is 5B4. I have just been swamped with two months of preparing the next four Errata Editions books to be press-ready for November. Those of you that have published your own books understand how much time and effort goes into their production – try doing four at once. I will announce what they are this coming week.<br /><br />There is a small stack of books here that I have been wanting to write and now that life is getting more manageable I can get to them. The first is Florian van Roekel’s <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.schaden.com/book/vanFloHow06225.html">How Terry Likes His Coffee</a> which I discovered a few months back during the Arles festival.<br /><br />The book is subtitled: <span style="font-style: italic;">A Photo Odyssey into Office Life</span>. I have never had a desk job, worked 40 hours a week for a paycheck, nor wanted to and I have a strong sense that I wouldn’t be a good fit in such an environment. I believe in the adage Do something you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life, so it is my hope that there are millions of people out there who love sitting in conference rooms, talking on phones, and passing the hours reading excel documents, otherwise this can get too depressing.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/vanFloHow06225.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">How Terry Likes His Coffee</span></a> opens with a few pages of white, lined paper upon which people have doodled, perhaps somewhat unconsciously while on the phone or performing some other task that can’t quite take full control of their mind. These pages prepare you for the expected – the staleness of office drudgery. They are hopeful but ultimately fleeting reminders of an alternate dreamlife and the need for an active mind to be stimulated. Coffee might be the other need. The first photograph, as hopeful as the drawings but as sad, describes flaccid balloons and party decorations hanging from a drop ceiling. One balloon is marked with the number 50 and one might suspect these are the remnants of an improvised birthday celebration that will be taken down and thrown away by the office cleaning crew.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3pC-skK12NMD0hGqtbxmlGg5cnlJJVCVrQYylHsb3TxmMWM2ZDfdR-3M7gkOTvRKZyhcjy2Ww2_MMrplA4NK6YaoPoVVa1TqmQhxgvswid6mHlTSH8B4jErXvUpslxzlXNw8bXr_FB0/s1600/coffeecomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3pC-skK12NMD0hGqtbxmlGg5cnlJJVCVrQYylHsb3TxmMWM2ZDfdR-3M7gkOTvRKZyhcjy2Ww2_MMrplA4NK6YaoPoVVa1TqmQhxgvswid6mHlTSH8B4jErXvUpslxzlXNw8bXr_FB0/s400/coffeecomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521617640746372626" border="0" /></a><br /><br />That photograph is followed by a few somewhat predictable still lifes of file boxes and water coolers. Things get more interesting for me a couple pages later as Roekel describes suit jackets draped over the backs of chairs. They seem to sway to some unexpected breeze – a flurry of movement disrupting stale air.<br /><br />The monotony of work, especially in front of computer or while on the phone has been a common theme in photography. One might think of Friedlander’s brilliant repetition of people staring into computer screens which were published as multiplying grids in the catalog Three on Technology from the mid-80s. Roekel engages a similar strategy through repetition, photographing the backs of people’s heads as they go about their assigned tasks, the crispness of his lighting highlights hair-styles as a subtle marker of personality in each person.<br /><br />The fourth “chapter” for me becomes the most interesting section as Roekel creates facing page diptychs of the workers on the phone. Often nearly identical pictures with only slight difference in the shift of the eyes or hand gestures. The workers are not speaking but listening. Their eyes seem to make clear that they are in the midst of digesting what is being said yet we might read deeper realizations are taking place.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQg9x5jt1WC5lHKKzvPENj7dUXLjkNKhGFhp_dMZSemt5ndnTGZiM1z-SGzAyoikCiGNKW0v3abr_BrCwV-nmFhj6N77rshL1XAyd0Xyx8n65YpFJVF3I2zwTy737wSzkopiXpW8Cg79I/s1600/coffeecomp3.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQg9x5jt1WC5lHKKzvPENj7dUXLjkNKhGFhp_dMZSemt5ndnTGZiM1z-SGzAyoikCiGNKW0v3abr_BrCwV-nmFhj6N77rshL1XAyd0Xyx8n65YpFJVF3I2zwTy737wSzkopiXpW8Cg79I/s400/coffeecomp3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521617565750749346" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The office space as absurdist comedy has been effectively done before by the likes of Tunbjork and there is a sparseness to this work I like throughout the book. Roekel boils down the images to simple close-ups. There are almost no photos that establish what this business is, nor the layout of the larger space. They keep you focusing on small details for their meaning. They are claustrophobic and the way his artificial light falls off quickly to darkness brings an ominous tone which can be stifling.<br /><br />The last chapter is a suite of pictures outside of the building where a managed landscape of trees transitions the corporate from the natural. Again Roekel keeps his camera close and doesn’t offer much by way of escape. He photographs the trees much in the same way he photographed the suit jackets – slowly swaying in the silent breeze that has blown through his exposure.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.florianvanroekel.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">How Terry Like His Coffee</span></a> was published in an edition of 500 hand-numbered copies.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-87293937577276650892010-08-05T23:54:00.001-04:002010-08-06T08:53:00.269-04:00El Lissitzky and Max Burchartz reprints from Lars Müller<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tW93DMiOl5HkPvrDxbpU-iQHNQ-9JVgCzmA0eaGhnFhA39SoeWocCoHcPiCDNHM1BN1bpaQaLgVNKEZbIKGfRfp5ZlOA-MSrPRpibHr4sVnNOT74mPvapqlsdJtGtWXA6li_Qshwv7k/s1600/vesccomp1"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 44px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tW93DMiOl5HkPvrDxbpU-iQHNQ-9JVgCzmA0eaGhnFhA39SoeWocCoHcPiCDNHM1BN1bpaQaLgVNKEZbIKGfRfp5ZlOA-MSrPRpibHr4sVnNOT74mPvapqlsdJtGtWXA6li_Qshwv7k/s400/vesccomp1" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502159257350237154" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />While in Koln Germany recovering from the Kassel festival burnout I made many non-photobook discoveries, one of which was a series that Verlag Lars Muller published in the mid-90s reprinting facsimiles of great graphic design from the 20s and 30s.<br /><br />These are cardboard slipcased boxes of loose material, often magazines, pamphlets, posters and single sheet replicas of letterhead or company advertising created by El Lissitzky and Max Burchartz and others. Individual boxes are dedicated to the work of one designer. I believe there are four in the series. Two others I saw but didn't buy are on the pamphlets and prospectus from the architect Hannes Meyer, and reprints of the architecture magazine from the Bauhaus, <a href="http://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=lissitzky"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">ABC</span></a> which was published from 1924-28 (edited by Hans Schmidt, Mart Stam, El Lissitzky and Emil Roth).<br /><br />The first that caught my eye in the <a href="http://www.buchhandlung-walther-koenig.de/">Walther Konig's bookstore</a> is a box that contains reprints of El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg's <a href="http://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=lissitzky"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Vesc</span></a> magazines. It debuted in 1922 with the aim of acting as a "link between two neighboring communication trenches" - that of young Russian and western European artists triangulating Berlin, Paris and Moscow. Constructivist in agenda it featured art and writing, "whose task is not to embellish life but organize it."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWmhfrV5WI1_wjexOf2QljZjWrVgUsogrbaCwhujbO2wi-aimXJGcEJGZIJYHCYdTbxCtWug9Z10i8UH5KPcMhntbN82bjx39f6gsNWOlYauIdyrET8xdehyphenhyphenBKTr8f4t_ZR2xaneGpJ4w/s1600/vesccomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWmhfrV5WI1_wjexOf2QljZjWrVgUsogrbaCwhujbO2wi-aimXJGcEJGZIJYHCYdTbxCtWug9Z10i8UH5KPcMhntbN82bjx39f6gsNWOlYauIdyrET8xdehyphenhyphenBKTr8f4t_ZR2xaneGpJ4w/s400/vesccomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502159076442710066" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Its emphasis on literature, art and music contained divergent attitudes and viewpoints partly due to the editor's openness to include of a wide variety of contributors but mostly because 1922 was a watershed year when Dadism was splitting into new camps rational and irrational tendencies - constructivism and surrealism. Contributors included; Lissitzky (of course), Fernand Leger, Boris Pasternak, Le Corbusier, Nicolai Punin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Raoul Hausmann, Harold Loeb, Juan Gris and dozens of others.<br /><br />This box includes the three issues of <a href="http://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=lissitzky"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Vesc</span></a> in two booklets (the original issues one and two were combined into a single volume) and a larger book of translations and essays on the magazine's history. There are relatively few illustrations with the articles but the typography and layout are visually exhilarating. The contemporary book of comments and translations (which thankfully includes English) has a fine essay by Roland Nachtigaller and Hubertus Gassner.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8YUVMfPPjAccNPlAm4xIGwU742btZEtMp2D-h2YbIVdzKGSlkxWiu6dFNhwDCXCOR5j1ouL0PYizQCWsYPrXHZdtcroi-7DJa7LVtYaKFKqbYoWl3uuSNZLLCZDh0AARgs3VPkb9pxo/s1600/burkcomp1"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 50px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8YUVMfPPjAccNPlAm4xIGwU742btZEtMp2D-h2YbIVdzKGSlkxWiu6dFNhwDCXCOR5j1ouL0PYizQCWsYPrXHZdtcroi-7DJa7LVtYaKFKqbYoWl3uuSNZLLCZDh0AARgs3VPkb9pxo/s400/burkcomp1" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502158902506609186" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The second box from this series I picked up is even better than the first, <a href="http://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=burchartz"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Max Burchartz: Typografische Arbeiten 1924-1931</span></a>. If the Lissitzky and Ehrenburg box seems a little empty since it is only three booklets, the Burchartz box is virtually overflowing with material.<br /><br />Although he never reached the level of fame attached to other designers, Burchartz is now considered a pioneer of modern design. His beginnings in painting and advertising expanded into typography, photography and furniture design. Admired by Jan Tschichold, some examples of his page layouts appeared in Tschichold's classic <span style="font-style: italic;">The New Typography</span> in 1928. His theories of color control for building interiors that he developed while working with the architect Alfred Fischer were thought groundbreaking but ultimately forgotten until recently.<br /><br />One of the most exciting inclusions in this box are a series of company pamphlets he made for the steel fabrication company <span style="font-style: italic;">Bochumer Verein</span>. Bold use of color schemes, photography and typography beautifully illustrate offerings of bells, springs, railroad tracks, mining tools, crankshafts, and mechanisms used for ship propellors. One might imagine that much of the design greatness of these 10 folios from 1925 went perhaps unnoticed by the tradesman who they were aimed to entice.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiga3KNMRyBPRtN8OWd5hVzx4YPR3ambp6dzk_jNMIAIW92g05qESc0DIef5rfF4qQfpTnAGodpA69IbXMt3-LE_6FFYrJ-E4c4R7NplxoM1FTAXGKB-H1elpu3hlXGmbUcrkEjT7LQnJQ/s1600/burkcomp2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 52px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiga3KNMRyBPRtN8OWd5hVzx4YPR3ambp6dzk_jNMIAIW92g05qESc0DIef5rfF4qQfpTnAGodpA69IbXMt3-LE_6FFYrJ-E4c4R7NplxoM1FTAXGKB-H1elpu3hlXGmbUcrkEjT7LQnJQ/s400/burkcomp2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502158735327046370" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Other items included are a couple of advertising pamphlets for a door handle company called <span style="font-style: italic;">Wehag</span> which feature some door handles Burchartz designed himself, a theater program booklet and theater schedule poster from 1925, a poster from a vacuum company called <span style="font-style: italic;">Orion</span>, as well as personal designs for his letterhead and calling card.<br /><br />The paper stock and printing used for these boxes reflect the original materials. All in all there are 26 items to <a href="http://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=burchartz"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Typografische Arbeiten</span></a>, all of which are produced at 1:1 scale. Also included is a booklet on Burchartz's personal history but unfortunately for me, it is in German with no English translation.<br /><br />These reprint boxes are modestly priced at around 60-80 dollars and luckily from what I see through used book listings they haven't really jumped in price a great deal since their initial publication. If early design and typography is your thing then these are well worth a look.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-46146185751278648222010-08-03T23:51:00.001-04:002010-08-03T23:55:22.781-04:00For a Language to Come by Takuma Nakahira<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9FejQMpxiQ9SKmY0uZneHFYP7z0vrPC0Bry_mTvL4hB1-mIfvrRsfYM6Te2DgfwGYpv8zUrKUE2XkhvPWlOdLHGNAVPiQvLSZY60tSNmXdv4WTfEj89F0BF6Wa7VjSdo_sqJObqrsXl0/s1600/nakahiracomp1"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 51px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9FejQMpxiQ9SKmY0uZneHFYP7z0vrPC0Bry_mTvL4hB1-mIfvrRsfYM6Te2DgfwGYpv8zUrKUE2XkhvPWlOdLHGNAVPiQvLSZY60tSNmXdv4WTfEj89F0BF6Wa7VjSdo_sqJObqrsXl0/s400/nakahiracomp1" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501397552463661202" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />My last posting on the sweep of awards for Japanese books in Arles leads me to mention the new edition of Takuma Nakahira's <a href="http://www.osiris.co.jp/e/flc_e.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">For a Language to Come</span></a> just published by Osiris.<br /><br />Originally appearing in 1970, <a href="http://www.osiris.co.jp/e/flc_e.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Kitarubeki Kotoba no Tameni</span></a> is Nakahira's jarring description of a dark world - a landscape where the natural order of light and shadow, distinctions of space and time, is upset. From the opening image, the descriptive qualities of Nakahira's approach set a tone of brooding, where even the brightest burst of light can't seem to penetrate the shadows. His staggering vantage points seem envisioned by someone wounded or intoxicated by their surroundings. The apocalypse is nearing or has passed, that is unclear, but the physical impact of the environment on this wanderer couldn't be clearer.<br /><br />The stifling claustrophobia of space in this world is extreme. Nakahira purposely condenses his tones and contrast to foreshorten space leaving little opportunity to breathe in the landscape. At night, spotlights and fluorescents offer little depth as if the speed of light was dragged to a standstill. When in natural light, we are often oppressed by a weighty haze of grey sky pushing down on the horizon line. The few pedestrians we encounter seem like sluggish sleepwalkers aimlessly going through the motions of life. This is not the dark but invigorated vision of Moriyama but a slowed pulse, the occasional images of lolling waves setting the pace.<br /><br />This reprint follows the same edit and sequencing of the original. The original jacketed softcover wraps have been changed to a hardcover with a new design by Hattori Kazunari (a new interpretation of the idiosyncratic original by Tsunehisa Kimura). The original rich gravure printing, since now an extinct process, has given way to a finely handled offset. The paper is slightly glossier than the original.<br /><br />In questioning how photography functions as either a language or something that exists "on the reverse side of language," Nakahira would ultimately re-examine his work in 1973, find it shackled by "expression" and shifted towards the attitude that photography must be like "an illustrated dictionary...[which]... consists only in clarifying the fact that material things are things." This would lead to his burning much of his past work on a beach near his home.<br /><br />Now that this new edition is presented to us after so much has been written about it - essentially confirming its status as one of the masterpieces of Japanese photography - it is interesting to question how it will be seen, apart from scholarship, within a contemporary viewpoint. Considering Nakahira's initial attempt to reject and destroy it, a level of historical value has won out. 40 years has passed since Nakahira revealed this world and questioned what is photography and what is language, now it can be tested again and see how his "thoughts" stand against time.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-15769614682722777612010-08-01T00:03:00.005-04:002010-08-01T00:18:40.208-04:00Yutaka Takanashi: Photography 1965-74<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqBiqsu3atu_q06UcyNcsVyi-a327GuJtVStQx_wWJ7FkHPCL-maNWaOSSWcgeIy1uxdgGT0_tkAYk7-VwDMN0J7ltYpB1x-5BoXvh1IV2D0pBR-DpbVhKOznoATVJCI6kTAnp8KofPYo/s1600/takcomp1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 68px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqBiqsu3atu_q06UcyNcsVyi-a327GuJtVStQx_wWJ7FkHPCL-maNWaOSSWcgeIy1uxdgGT0_tkAYk7-VwDMN0J7ltYpB1x-5BoXvh1IV2D0pBR-DpbVhKOznoATVJCI6kTAnp8KofPYo/s400/takcomp1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500287513901521826" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br />A month ago marked the start of the 2010 <span style="font-style: italic;">Les Rencontres D'Arles</span> smoking convention which I attended for a few days. I found a small number of books (still trying to show restraint) which I will mention in the upcoming weeks. The main draw for me is the competition which names one "contemporary" book and one "historical" book as "best of the year" - the winners get 8000 euros each. Last year I entered the first <a href="http://www.errataeditions.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Errata Editions</span></a> books for the historical prize and we didn't fair very well. The judges that year were extremely critical of the concept of my books and not for the reasons you would think. <a href="http://5b4.blogspot.com/2009/07/les-rencontres-darles-2009-book-awards.html">(See my report from last year for more details).</a><br /><br />So this year I entered the new <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.errataeditions.com/">Errata</a> </span>books with no hope of a prize but purely to help introduce them to a new audience. That Saturday, the day I was leaving, they made the final decision on the two awards and I was excited, not to mention surprised, to hear that this year's judges liked the series so much they were considering them for the historical prize. Their final decision went to <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Japanese Photobooks of the 60s and 70s</span> from <span style="font-style: italic;">Aperture</span> instead, but I am pleased to say that during the award ceremony that evening, they gave <span style="font-style: italic;">Errata Editions</span> a special runner-up mention.<br /><br />The winner of the contemporary book went to <span style="font-style: italic;">Only Photography</span>'s fine book <a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/TakYuetPho06140.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Yutaka Takanashi Photography 1965-74</span></a>. <a href="http://www.only-photography.com/pages/publishing_published_1.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Only Photography</span></a> is Roland Angst's independent publishing house in Berlin. Their books are beautifully produced with a strong care towards design and printing and the Takanashi book is their best so far. Past titles have been Ray K. Metzker's <a href="http://www.only-photography.com/pages/publishing_published_1.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Automagic</span></a> and Frauke Eigen's <a href="http://www.only-photography.com/pages/publishing_published_1.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Shoku</span></a>.<br /><br />This hardcover book presents an edit of 41 images from <a href="http://www.errataeditions.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Toshi-e</span></a> in a large vertical format and the selection corresponded to an exhibition of mostly vintage prints that was on display at <a href="http://www.priskapasquer.de/en/">Galerie Priska Pasquer</a> in Cologne, Germany. This marked the first solo showing of Takanashi in Germany. One of the gallery directors, Ferdinand Bruggemann is a specialist on Japanese photography and contributes a fine essay on Takanashi and his masterwork, <a href="http://www.errataeditions.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Toshi-e</span></a>. A second essay by Hitoshi Suzuki, who was an assistant to Kohei Suguira the book's designer, provides a personal remembrance of discovering the book in Seguira's design studio while it was being created. A short preface from the gallerist Priska Pasquer opens the book.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtm3uW88pipXlgfwJbz02DN3gYD_fddg3lWXaG1YEnTaHDDoH5uM7-VVhccoArcrDGQCE8LLW-xkBdSHTnl1U05zdNT4GrFiui24pFhoZXr_2IQ5OlzCCZ9VPcYRqI0Qk3sLm7XUbfVI/s1600/takcomp2"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 62px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtm3uW88pipXlgfwJbz02DN3gYD_fddg3lWXaG1YEnTaHDDoH5uM7-VVhccoArcrDGQCE8LLW-xkBdSHTnl1U05zdNT4GrFiui24pFhoZXr_2IQ5OlzCCZ9VPcYRqI0Qk3sLm7XUbfVI/s400/takcomp2" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500287404706454338" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.schaden.com/book/TakYuetPho06140.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Yutaka Takanashi Photography 1965-74</span></a> is beautifully realized with three different cover images silk screened onto the cloth of the boards. A yellow translucent dustjacket wraps the book and the color I have been told reflects the tone off an exhibition poster from the first solo exhibit of this work in Japan in the 1980s. The printing of the plates is also exquisite - a modern offset interpretation of the original's lush gravure which remains rich and clean. The design reflects the twisting and turning of the original (horizontals oriented vertically) but with additional gatefolds for a few of the horizontal pictures. It was printed in an edition of only 500, 30 of which come signed and numbered with a print. An additional 100 were signed and numbered by Takanashi. I strongly recommend this book if you can get one. They are a bit pricey but I assure you it is because these books were expensive to produce.<br /><br />So this year was a clean sweep of awards nodding towards Japan (it was also our study of <a href="http://www.errataeditions.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Toshi-e</span></a> that had gotten the main attention from the jury). My congratulations go to <span style="font-style: italic;">Aperture</span> and Roland of <span style="font-style: italic;">Only Photography</span>, I don't mind coming in second when the competition was that strong.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6666226609376223220.post-45798581106780939072010-07-30T10:02:00.007-04:002010-07-31T11:18:12.324-04:00720 (Two times around) by Andrew Phelps<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaqhawOXD2aAcAQpGnM4Lvi3hjpOQCpb1DNaV5Cm2kf2L17jeoXYtrmPEwuRwDTbjYvTr5Jstcj-BjBeSga2w2Ap9tk43wBMR-VAhDspuA2Ev80RAcEV-m5Ty0hyphenhyphenQ_vdUUrzsk1ufX58M/s1600/pheplscomp"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 42px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaqhawOXD2aAcAQpGnM4Lvi3hjpOQCpb1DNaV5Cm2kf2L17jeoXYtrmPEwuRwDTbjYvTr5Jstcj-BjBeSga2w2Ap9tk43wBMR-VAhDspuA2Ev80RAcEV-m5Ty0hyphenhyphenQ_vdUUrzsk1ufX58M/s400/pheplscomp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499699444418811906" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Two hundred years of American technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of unlimited potential. But it was the minds of 11 year olds that could see that potential.”</span> <span style="font-size:85%;">- CR Stecyk</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Richard Armijo was kicked out of Whittier (skatepark) again for the last time. Maybe his hair was too short, maybe it was his attitude, maybe he just doesn't care. Things are different this go around because Richard and his friends say they're not going back...Ever."</span> <span style="font-size:85%;">- CR Stecyk</span><br /><br />The only other thing I was ever good at in my life before photography was skateboarding. I spent nearly everyday from 1980 to 1989 throwing my body around like a dishrag in roughly paved drainage ditches and halfpipe ramps in Arizona and later New Jersey and New York. Those hardcore years are scarred into my hips and shins. After art school, a part of my life has been spent struggling to stay connected with the feelings I had skating back then. I still kick around a bit and tell myself I "still skate" but it is more in my mind than reality. I was never good enough to gain sponsorship, never liked competing, and now, at 41, suffer a bad knee and the worst of traits a skater can feel, fear. I hold on by watching videos of new generations perform feats on the streets and ramps that my generation couldn't have thought possible. It is a passion, like photography, I imagine I will take to the grave.<br /><br />I make strong comparisons between skating and photography. Both require large amounts of passion, attention to your surroundings, perseverance and risk taking. I see a skater's line as artistic and improvisational as anything William Forsythe choreographs, as sculptural as Richard Serra, or as mind bending as Matthew Barney. It has creates its own language, both in words and form that is as unique as Kurt Schwitters or John Cage.<br /><br />There are many books on skateboarding but most fail because they suffer from the same trait that I have succumbed to, nostalgia. Powerhouse Books just published <a href="http://www.powerhousearena.com/products-page/?category=9&product_id=48"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Full Bleed</span></a> which is a compilation of images from the 70s through the 2000s of east coast skaters tearing up NYC. It's an interesting highlight reel of greatness but nothing more. It leaves me in the past like so many now distant memories, where as Andrew Phelps' newest book <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.andrew-phelps.com/publications/720/index.html">720</a><a href="http://www.andrew-phelps.com/publications/720/index.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> (Two times around)</span></a>, a small self-published, spiral-bound book of 16 pictures in an edition of 100, holds more of the actual spirit of skating than any image of Huf or Gonz caught at the apex of a trick.<br /><br />While photographing in Austria, Phelps discovered an abandoned corporate building which had been infiltrated by skaters. They set up makeshift ramps and obstacles with the aid of a few power tools and ingenuity. Left behind doors unhinged from their frames and upturned desks transform into a playground within the wasteland of empty offices and corridors of failed big business.<br /><br />There are no skaters present, no "tre-flips" or "blunt slides" being performed. Their presence is felt by the wheel marks on walls and blackened, waxed edges of ledges. The improvisation of construction and the lingering excitement of what must have been felt upon the first run up any of these obstacles hangs in the air. Graffiti on the walls marks a list of the fleeting accomplishments. "Mario bailed" but Phil pulled a "backside crooked grind." That unique language again. For the uninitiated it is nonsensical, but to see a backside crooked grind, that is a universal language.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.andrew-phelps.com/publications/720/index.html"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ></span></a><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">720</a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> (Two times around)</span></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" > is dedicated to both Mike McGill and Robert Adams. Mike McGill revolutionized skating in the 80s with the invention of a spinning 540 degree air performed 5 feet above the lip of Del Mar skatepark's keyhole bowl. It was a spectacle which stunned onlookers and marked a turning point in skating - perhaps like Adam's <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The New West</span> marked a turning point in photography. As Phelps concludes in a brief afterword, <span style="font-style: italic;">"When I dream of skating, I'm Mike McGill. When I dream of photographing, I'm Robert Adams."</span> Two very different sources of inspiration, one spectacular and the other deceptively not, both meeting the same outcome to push a medium of expression forward for new generations.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com