5B4

Goodness Gracious Great Firewalls of China

2009-11-25T04:10:00.001-05:00

大家好。我当前是在检查下本印刷错误编辑书的中国新闻中。象去年我打算张贴关于制造的每日报告每本书，但是它在我的游行今年看起来象中国的伟大的防火墙下着雨。 Blogger被阻拦了。因此我将保存所有我的报告并且张贴他们星期我的回归。我的道歉… Whiskets

Hello all. I am currently in China press checking the next Errata Editions books. Like last year I intended to post a daily report about the making of each book but this year it looks like the Great Firewall of China is raining on my parade. Blogger has been blocked. So I will save all my reports and post them the week of my return. My apologies...

Whiskets

Paris to China

2009-11-21T04:09:00.003-05:00

Just a quick note to say that I am on my way to China to go through the grueling press checks on the next Errata Editions books. I have spent a few days at Paris Photo and will give a recap of events when I have a moment to relax. In the meanwhile, here is an interesting Ilya Kabakov book you should search out. Cheers...

My Mother's Album by Ilya Kabakov

2009-11-21T04:06:00.000-05:00

Ilya Kabakov's book My Mother's Album opens to a page upon which is typed in cyrillic lettering, Life as an Insult. What follows is a letter, a plea from an 79 year old woman to the central government in Russia to authorize a change of apartments because she cannot physically manage to bring wood and water into her living quarters any longer. She begs for a switch to a state run apartment where utilities are provided. The woman we are informed, is Kabakov's mother Bailey Solodukhina.

Posing as an autobiography put together by his mother by his request, My Mother's Album wants to be a historical document which by all appearances is real. It has the patina of age and seems assembled by an un-artistic hand. The pages are facsimiles of bluish album paper upon which short passages of her story are glued, accompanied by postcard style photographs (made by the Kabokov's uncle who was a professional photographer) presenting the state's image of the village of Berdiansk with prosperity and flourishing socialism. The texts however, describes a very different reality.

Her life described in short fragments is one filled with hopes dashed by hardship and abandonment. This clear-cut and perhaps expected disconnect is the starting point for the work, as one reads on and views the images we search for some shards of truth as both represent differing perceptions. Since memory is a full of reconstructions and the processing of information in personal ways, neither can be fully trusted. The curiosity is that the photography is whole heartedly dismissed as propaganda while the texts seem to represent the only true "reality."

This becomes all the more complicated when we look to Kabakov's past work which has entirely fabricated history and persona for its own use. My Mother's Album keeps unfolding and presenting its reality through to the last pages which shows a timeline of photographs of his mother and his family but again, one reads the photographs as either to confirm or belie the previous story. Both succeed in trapping time and hold us to waiting for something to come which in Kabakov's words represents how he felt as a child - "the torture of endless anticipation."

My Mother's Album was published in 1995 by Flies France.

In This Dark Wood by Elisabeth Tonnard

2009-11-14T19:26:00.004-05:00

Last weekend was another small artbook fair in New York at which I made an exciting discovery in the work of a young Dutch poet and visual artist named Elisabeth Tonnard. Tonnard has been in residence at Rochester's Visual Studies Workshop and has created several artist books over the past several years. One title that was a must own for me was her book In This Dark Wood published in 2008. I am one year late to add this to my Best of 2009 list but since I make the rules here, I will happily add it anyway.

In This Dark Wood presents a selection of photographs from an archive that is currently housed at the Visual Studies Workshop. The pictures are from a commercial photo firm called "Fox Movie Flash" which was owned by a man named Joseph Selle. Working in the San Francisco area, Selle and a team of street photographers made casually framed fleeting portraits of pedestrians intended to be sold to the passers-by after development.

Shot with half frame cameras that would hold a 100 foot roll of 35mm film, each roll captured more than 1500 photographs. The archive consists of over a million images made from the 1930s to the 70s.

Tonnard constructed her book using 90 of the photographs paired with 90 different English translations of the first line of Dante's Inferno:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che la via diritta era smarrita.

Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood
for I had wandered off from the straight path.

Selle's unsuspecting subjects walking alone and caught in the light of the flash, become the multitude of alienated souls wandering "the dark woods" of the city. What is amazing about this work is how, accompanied by the suggestion of the text, the environs surrounding each subject heighten the metaphor. Movie marquees caught in the upper corners of the frames read movie titles of violence and doom; "Ring of Fire," "Hell is a City," "...from Hell," "Petrified World, "Nightfall," "Corridors of Blood."

Tonnard sequenced the photographs to emphasize repetition and further sense of - in Tonnard's words - moving "incessantly to and fro" without seemingly making any progress much like Dante's lost souls. By stressing the difference in translations, Tonnard is also emphasizing the fluidity of language and thus a path that may appear straight but is in constant flux.

In This Dark Wood is a print on demand book in an open edition. The size of a trade paperback it is simple in its design and construction which can make the price tag on first glance seem high. It isn't an elegant presentation (her creation is certainly deserving of better treatment) but the photographs are wonderfully striking and not without their individual surprise.

Highly recommended.

Check Elisabeth Tonnard's website for other books and ordering information.

Fun and Games by Lisa Kereszi

2009-11-11T22:41:00.004-05:00

Our desire to give into fantasy and escape everyday life has led to the creation of outlets so seemingly absurd I wonder how we'll be perceived as a species in the far future. We love sitting on the edge of fear, we love movies that are like roller coaster rides, we love to feel out of control, if just for a moment. We don't really concentrate on the finer details. We are seduced into the experience by colorful lights and surreal imagery that in the bright light of day often appears sad and frayed but we suspend disbelief for the sake of fun. Lisa Kereszi is fascinated with such places whether found inside a strip club, on a beachside boardwalk attraction, or in a disco. Her new book from Nazraeli Press, Fun and Games, presents 49 photographs made in such places.

Fun and Games opens as many great books have, with an open doorway. It is almost an obvious joke as Kereszi's doorway was found at the entrance to the Spook-A-Rama on Coney Island. A single wide eye stares back at us before we enter, reminding us that it is all fun and games until someone loses - Ok you get it.

Kereszi's deadpan gaze focuses on the kitsch and the tattered. She emphasizes the poor constructions and wear from use evident on the walls and carpets. In one, the remnants of spilt popcorn litter the ornate carpet pattern of a movie theater. A laughable cliche of a phantom is airbrushed on a disco wall. In another she describes the thin strands of cord hanging from the ceiling which have startled many in the pitch dark of Deno's Spook-A-Rama.

In the light, these small details are center stage and their artifice obvious. Pointing out kitsch for simple laughs is easy to do and many young photographers have been ensnared by such tactics but Kereszi seems to be doing her best to seduce and allow us to be taken in and amused. These are not automatic yucks but resonant images full of hope found in a disappearing landscape that is rarer to experience in our search for high tech entertainment.

As a book Fun and Games sticks to Nazraeli's design and construction. Glossy laminate boards cover the usual large plates and typography. I tend to like the work Nazraeli publishes in their books but I do wish they'd mix up the design and feel of their titles. After so many similar books they seem very formulaic in their book-craft.

Kereszi's first monograph, Fantasies was interesting but the images I responded to the most in that title where the still-lifes and incidental scenes similar to the ones featured here in Fun and Games. This is a tighter edit and altogether better book. She seems more in control, while we, through her photos, may entertain the many ways we wish to lose ourselves in fantasy.

Nationalgalerie by Thomas Demand

2009-11-08T08:15:00.003-05:00

The second of my installments of best books of 2009 also comes from Steidl, Thomas Demand Nationalgalerie.

This is a catalog was published in conjunction with Demand's exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and it was timed to mark two points in German history - the 60 year anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since Demand's work always concerns itself with pivotal moments in history and reconstructing an artificial representation to be re-imagined and "remembered", this timing could not be more perfect.

As with many of Demand's books/catalogs there is a strong attempt to make an elegant object. Nationalgalerie has stark, egg-shell colored buckram covers much like any common library book - simple typography announces the title. Opening to beautiful wall-paper style endpapers, each of the 38 plates is printed on two-page foldouts which require care and patience to view. On the cover of each foldout short text passages by the German playwright Botho Strauß are printed. The passages less explain the images directly but philosophically question what we are seeing and re-experiencing.

For this exhibition, Demand chose exclusively 'German' works inspired by German history. Looking through the sequence, Demand jumbles that history into a distorted timeline that questions the relationship of one moment to the next, much in the same way that Richter's Atlas or Schmidt's Un-i-ty does through their own free association of images.

The plates in Thomas Demand Nationalgalerie are beautifully printed on fine paper stock and the size allows each image to be reproduced at a large scale. This scale is important yet not for the usual reasons. Demand's paper constructions lack the pollution of exacting details which photography usually obsesses over. His is a less cluttered representation where the viewer might be side-stepped by the small imperfections in his constructions momentarily but the overall cleanliness invites us to inhabit each in ways we wouldn't if it were a historical image. As Strauß writes of Demand, "Art alone has the power to exchange much for little. Consider Demand's models of sublimated space. The magical emptiness clears our world of a great deal of superfluity."

The one draw back to Demand's work in book form is that the same images are present in several volumes often making ownership of more than one unnecessary. I have acquired several over the years but the ones I have kept are few. The 2006 Serpentine Gallery catalog I wrote about last year is a must, the 2007 Processo Grottesco is a must have for the wealth of source material and wonderful design, and now this new Nationalgalerie volume has bumped a couple of the earlier retrospective books like the 2005 MoMA catalog and the 2000 Cartier catalog off my shelves. If you are looking for your first book from one of Germany's most important artists, look no further.

Protest Photographs by Chauncey Hare

2009-11-02T22:24:00.003-05:00

Over the next month, time willing, I will be featuring several books which are my picks for best books of the year. The first is the new Steidl and Steven Kasher publication of Chauncey Hare's Protest Photographs.

Chauncey Hare is known primarily for his 1978 book Interior America from Aperture. Attuned to his own estrangement in the corporate world being a research engineer for Standard Oil, he began photographing as an escape from his everyday routine. In his written introductory essay he describes the physical and psychological toll that such an environment had on his health including daily nausea and extreme panic disorders from which he suffered. These unpleasant attacks would let up as the week ended and Hare could look forward to photographing during the weekends.

Starting with 35mm and graduating to a Burke and James 5x7 camera, Hare was initially too shy to approach people directly so he described the landscape around the homes of Richmond, California where he lived. On one occasion in 1968 Hare was approached by a man who offered to sell him a camera. This invitation into the man's home led Hare to start to explore the interiors lives of the workers in the area. Citing the resonance of photographers like Evans and Russell Lee, Hare methodically worked to gain access into people's living rooms and three Guggenheim fellowship facilitated a large body of work that has incredibly remained under the radar of many younger photographers.

When I was in art school, Hare's Interior America was a book that often came up in conversation with my teachers. What struck me was his indelicate use of artificial lighting. His strobes aren't softened to reduce strong shadows and often the blanket of light is harsh. It is if he wished for every hard edge to be revealed in crisp uncompromising detail.

The original edition of Interior America followed a straight forward design from Marvin Israel keeping to one picture on the right and a short caption specifying place on the left page. It suffered from a weak printing which made Hare's pictures on first glance seem unimpressive. One had to fight to fully sense the power of those 77 images. The whole endeavor feels cheap and so typical of books from the late 70s.

Protest Photographs is a more direct title for the work. Hare's response to the claustrophobic atmosphere and spiritual desolation in the workers lives (and his own) is its driving force and his main concern. It is his vision of what could be extraordinary lives dulled by joyless routine and loss of personal meaning - anesthetized cogs in a machine.

Protest Photographs expands the edit of Interior America to include many more images as well as photographs Hare made within the offices of corporate world he was rallying against (Hare once handed out protest leaflets at a lecture at MoMA protesting the Mirrors and Windows exhibition that included one of his images as he didn't approve of the museum's corporate sponsor). The printing is light-years better than the original, restoring Hare's extended tonal range and giving it its full due.

Hare was considering destroying all of the existing prints and negatives of his work unless the Bancroft Library at the University of California would accept it as a donation. The wealth of material which includes taped interviews he conducted with workers and corporate managers, slide shows, 50,000 negatives, 3500 prints and 30,000 35mm slides.

In the late 1980s Hare gave up photography to become a therapist who concentrated on work related abuse. Perhaps he saw how it is difficult for photography to truly make a change, or, was photography just a step in many outlets to spread the message of shifting priorities to one's own happiness and fulfillment. Hare lived in both those worlds. His view was saved and is now available in this book - kept out of a bonfire that couldn't possibly have consumed his anger.

John Baldessari: Pure Beauty

2009-10-20T23:56:00.001-04:00

I was teaching a class in contemporary art for UC Extension, and John was teaching a drawing class down the hall. In those days the classes were held in the La Jolla Museum and the students were a mix of high school teachers and servicemen working for credentials and returning housewives and retired professionals just interested in art. The classes were a couple hours long with a short break in the middle, when John and I would meet in the hall. One day I broke early and walked over to his room to get him. John was sitting in the front, looking out the window, while the students were copying a piece of plumbing sitting on the desk.
"John," I said, "they're cross-hatching the shadows!"
"Yeah'" he said, "they like to cross-hatch. It feels professional." - David Antin from Eight Stories for John Baldessari

A new book on the hugely influential artist John Baldessari published for his retrospective at LACMA, Pure Beauty is one of my favorites of the year. Baldessari, an artist who has used a wealth of mediums including photography, is a prolific source, challenging our perceptions of painting, photography, video and text. Playful and slyly profound, his works address mass culture and how we digest the images that surround us and what they convey.

In some ways his art is one that wants to appeal to everyone but its deadpan straight-forwardness often confounds the viewer and we stumble over his creations, questioning their intent. He is one that challenges us to really look and perceive, accepting what might be considered humor, yet not being stunted by its presence.

It was his disregard of traditional representation, attempting to talk to the audience literally in a language they could relate to, that led Baldessari to create many of his well known text paintings. One called Subject Matter (again painted by the local sign painter) is lettering on a light green background, "Subject Matter Look at the subject as if you have never seen it before. Examine it from every side. Draw its outline with your eyes or in the air with your hands. And saturate yourself with it." This very painting with its sobering text might be hanging on a wall next to different artist's painting and yet another a few feet away. What are the parameters for examination? Within the single canvas? Or taking in, almost cinematically, all of the works, including: the wall, the moulding, the doorway, the window and what is seen outside. This extension of perception led to many of his later works which combined multiple images, often in separate frames and taking up large on gallery and museum walls.

As Lawrence Weiner once wrote of Baldessari, "John...understands that art is based on the relationships between human beings and that we, as Americans, understand our relationship to the world through various media. We think of any unknown situation in terms of something we've seen at the movies...John is dealing with the archetypal consciousness of what media represent, using the material that affects daily life."

Pure Beauty covers Baldessari's entire career and includes nine substantial essays from various writers. Illustrated by hundreds of plates and handsomely designed using different paper stock for text and image, Pure Beauty has quickly become one of my picks for Books of the Year for 2009. It was co-published by LACMA, Delmonico and Prestel.

On the way back from an opening in Los Angeles, Elly and I were sleepy and stopped for gas in San Juan Capistrano. It was late, the road was empty, and I was doing 65 or 70 in my two-hundred dollar, 1950 Chrysler Imperial with the wire wheels and electric powered windows. It was a gusty night and we could feel the mountain winds buffeting the car, and as we drove, the black hood rose slowly, floated up and over the windshield and disappeared behind us before I could stop the car or turn around. We went back to look for it the next day somewhere south of San Clemente. But it was gone. The only thing to do was find another one in a junkyard in Chula Vista. That's when I found out there was a place called National City. - David Antin from Eight Stories for John Baldessari

Trapped in the proverbial vacuum of Southern California's National City, John Baldessari discovered a way to accept the void, the cultural isolation, the boredom and estrangement. He made a series of snapshots, sometimes from a moving car, sometimes from the hip, of life in National City - pictures of street corners, various storefronts, suburban homes, car dealerships - everything he saw as "the real situation." These he would use photo emulsion to apply them to canvas and as a finishing touch, hired a sign painter to paint a caption, usually the location, in a straight-forward and matter of fact style. These photo-texts pieces he created starting in 1966 would lead him to ceremoniously cremate all of his previous works in his possession on July 24, 1970.

A book I picked up at Artbook Cologne earlier this year from the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego called John Baldessari: National City (1996) features most of this work plus newly realized pieces created when Baldessari revisited sites in his former hometown.

These works raise questions about image and text in similar ways to Ed Ruscha's self-published artist books of the time. One reads Twenty-six Gasoline Stations and then peruses photos of gasoline stations but all the while we are looking for more, questioning the simplicity. When Baldessari has his picture taken standing in front of a palm tree in a suburban neighborhood, then has his sign painter caption the photo "Wrong," we stumble for a moment. Is he questioning rules of photography? The palm tree sprouts from the head of the figure, breaking a conventional rule - do not photograph people so things appear to be growing out of the subject's head. When he directs us to look at an "Econ-O-Wash" at 14th and Highland do we accept the image or are we distrustful of the artist. Is this conceptual art? On first viewing, the images seem funny and according to Joseph Kosuth, the use of comic irony fell into pop art, and he once implied, "conceptual art could not be funny." So in essence, Baldessari (according to Kosuth) was doing everything "wrong." Why are these canvases sized 59 x 45? So they could fit inside the artist's van.

As a book, John Baldessari: National City, is not a great object but to have these works in a single volume at an affordable price is the draw. Along with eight essays by various authors, the plates are reproduced in color and works from the series not included in the exhibition are shown in duotone as well. Look for this one before it gets too pricey.

Rome + Klein by William Klein

2009-10-17T23:33:00.000-04:00

"I compare Rome, once again, to an artist's studio, not that of the elegant artist, who, like ours, dreams of success and plays a role, but that of an old artist with messy hair who in his time had a streak of genius and who now squabbles with shopkeepers." -Hippolyte Taine

In 1956 while Federico Fellini was in Paris for the premier of I Vitelloni, he received a phone call from a young William Klein who asked to meet and show him his recently published book Life is Good & Good for You in New York. Upon meeting the following day, Fellini mentioned already owning the Italian edition which he said he liked and kept by his bed. According to Klein, within minutes he was invited to become an assistant to Fellini on his latest project, The Nights of Cabiria. His job was to photograph during the casting and document the prospective whores and pimps, black marketeers, hoods, and other "scroungy characters" needed for the film. Finances were delayed and Klein was free for eight weeks to roam the streets looking for his own take on the city, sometimes accompanied by Fellini, Alberto Morovia and other avant-garde writers and artists. Klein's Rome: The City and Its People was published in 1959 and Aperture has just released a new 50th anniversary edition as two books housed in a special PVC slipcase.

Like his reworking of his classic book on New York from 1995 (Marval), Rome + Klein is not a direct facsimile reprint of the original. He has left much of the graphic design by the wayside in favor of full bleed images and inclusion of additional photos that did not appear in the original. As Klein has said of his revisitation of the New York work, "The first book was about graphic design, the second is about photography" - the same approach holds true here.

Klein's Rome, the original, is the only of his "city" books which I do not own so direct comparison is not possible but what I gather is that most of the additional material included in this new edition is from his various fashion assignments shot in the streets with his usual flare for mixing the staged with the unpredictable. Klein has written of the fashion pictures, "I found it hard to take seriously, and the photos were mostly private jokes." What is not a joke is that within eight weeks Klein literally blitzed the city and produced one of his better books in such a short time.

Appropriately not as vertiginous as the New York work, Klein keeps a quick visual pace even among Rome's seemingly sluggish citizens. Rome + Klein opens with a photo of the guard to the famous Cinecitta film studios relaxed next to sculpture of Greco-Roman wrestlers, his rounded stomach more akin to the bulbous fenders of the nearby Vespa scooter than the marbled muscles of his arm-locked ancestors. Klein shoves his Leica and trademark wide lens into the crowds while they walk, eat and play while also making more static (albeit visually loud) portraits of his artist friends that acted sometimes as his guides.

In one, on invitation from Fellini to meet up with Vittorio De Sica, Klein gets a bonus appearance by Roberto Rossellini and a crowded portrait of three of the greatest film-makers is made, but Klein's image is not one of star struck glamour, he photographs them as if they were anonymous figures found on any street corner.

After a brief introduction about the "why and how" the work came into being, the first book is all photographs whose flow is only interrupted by the chapter divisions which make up the six parts. The second book is a thinner volume of Klein's captions and extended texts from a variety of authors along with design elements that playfully litter the margins. It is within these writings that one discovers Klein's own texts are as entertaining and smart as his photographs. For anyone who has read the Manhadoes essay or captions from the booklet attached to Life is Good... will know, Klein is extremely funny and writes in a style that puts the free verse of some of the Beats to shame. I find it curious that his texts are never mentioned at all in regard to his books since their strength is so apparent.

As books, Rome + Klein are well conceived and beautifully produced. I like the split of the two books into photographs and captions, certainly the smaller caption book may invite people to actually read his texts which in a combined volume would have been a task due to the larger size and weight. The PVC slipcase is printed with the same colorful jacket image that graced the original. My only critique is that Klein has been employing the same typography and layout for several titles now and the graphic elements lack the former surprise and playful irreverence.

Klein has been recognized as one of the major talents of the twentieth century, not only as a photographer but as a film-maker as well. He challenged each medium he tackled from painting to photography to graphic design and I would add, even writing. This work, unlike his work from his hometown of New York, was unplanned and the fruit of a chance meeting. In the words of praise from Fellini, "Rome is a movie, and Klein did it."

Note: Aperture is having a Benefit and Auction on November 2nd. Click here for more information.

Making the Photographic Book Workshop

2009-10-15T08:48:00.004-04:00

A quick reminder that the weekend after next is another great opportunity to dust off those workprints and start shaping a book with Ken Schles and Jeffrey Ladd:

Making the Photographic Book: A Weekend Workshop.

With instant publishing and printing on demand, limited edition monographs and coffee table tomes, the era of the photographic book has arrived. Do you have the makings of a great book? Where does one start? During this intensive two-day workshop we will work with you to mold your book idea into a credible shape as you give it form. We will view and discuss classic photographic book concepts and guide you through critiques on editing and sequencing while exploring the practicalities of putting a book dummy together.

October 24 - 25 (Saturday and Sunday) from 10 am - 5 pm.

This workshop will be held in Manhattan:

526 West 26th Street, Suite 507, NY, NY 10001 (btwn 10th and 11th Avenues; see map).

This class will be taught jointly by Ken Schles and Jeffrey Ladd.

Prerequisite: This workshop is for someone who already has a series of images (20-30) no larger than 8x10 (preferably smaller) that they want to work with. These images will form the basis of your “book.” This "hands on" class does not require computers or knowledge of page layout programs.

Cost: $425.00.

To reserve a spot for this class, please email us at: psworkshops[at]me.com

Jet Master by Idan Hayosh, Corina Künzli and Salome Schmuki

2009-10-13T23:42:00.000-04:00

About twelve years ago I found two, one foot by three foot "circuit camera" panoramic photographs in the basement of my grandparent's home. They were made by E.O. Goldbeck and my grandfather appears left of center in full military dress. One of the prints shows the soldiers with hats on, the second, hats off. Goldbeck, besides being one of the best known of all users of circuit cameras, had a service which photographed military regiments for over thirty years. Some of his photos ordered thousands of people into one image.

The book from Kodoji press Jet Master by Idan Hayosh, Corina Künzli and Salome Schmuki explores the overt order and hidden orders of group portraits and military weaponry.

Jet Master is an artist collaboration which started with Idan Hayosh's fascination with images which were made to sell military hardware. Fighter planes sit on tarmac surrounded by the various bombs, missiles, and payloads they can carry. The order of the weaponry is frighteningly similar to any formal group portrait wether from high school, sports team or commercial business.

The construction of the book is a collaboration between Hayosh and two graphic designers Corina Künzli and Salome Schmuki. They classified and arranged the images with a strategy in mind that both emphasizes their similarity but also hidden patterns.

The way the weaponry is represented shows a strategic effort to seduce. The symmetry of line and scale is easy for the viewer to accept - it appeals with child-like fascination. They present incredible force but with little thought to the actual destruction that could be unleashed. Just like sex can sell anything, the same psychological manipulation is in effect. With the inclusion of historical photos covering many decades, one realizes that this type of manipulation has been thought about (and apparently successful) for a long time.

Kodoji Press, headed by Winfried Heininger, publish well thought out and attractive books and Jet Master is no exception. It comes in two editions, one in 900 English copies and 200 in Hebrew.

Henry Frank: Father, Photographer

2009-10-10T23:19:00.000-04:00

Robert Frank's father Henry sold radios and record players, designed furniture, and also in his spare time during family outings - snapped photographs with a stereo camera. A new title from Steidl brings together 47 of his images in Henry Frank: Father, Photographer.

Robert's influence early on has been cited in photographers like Gotthard Schuh, Jakob Tuggener and Walker Evans but looking through this small collection, the earliest seeds might be found long before his conscious decision to pick up a camera. Henry Frank pointed his camera at his family as would be expected, but also made images that seem to be early precursors to his sons a few decades later. One, of a grouping of men being lifted into the air by balloons, might remind some of Frank's image of the Macy's parade featured in Black, White and Things.

Robert in the afterword describes his father as a bon vivant and the sense of the pursuit of a good life is evident in his photographs. He photographs on joyous occasions loaded with small details that lock the pictures into the old world. Like Lartigue, the photos describe the weekend pleasures of families escaping into the grandeur of the countryside, the pride of owning an automobile, and portraits of family, friends and their pets.

Henry Frank: Father, Photographer is a small book and keeps its design to the classic feel of an album. It does not present the photographs as stereo images but as single frames and the plates show the roughness of the original images with faded edges and muddled tonalities. It is a modest book, perfectly fitting with the intimacy of the photos.

Skeptics might say that these are interesting to a wider audience mostly because they are in relation to Robert Frank. I see them as a collection worthy of their own merit, perhaps not great art, but certainly better than the average dad on a family outing - one who turned out to be a role model for a son's greater ambition.

The New York Artbook Fair at MoMA's PS.1

2009-10-08T23:26:00.004-04:00

This past weekend had me preoccupied with the Printed Matter New York Artbook Fair held at PS1 in Queens NY. For anyone living in the area who hasn't been, it is a great chance to see more books than one can possibly take in within one weekend. Still I saw some stuff that had me wanting to rethink my recent personal moratorium I placed on book buying.

The events started Thursday evening with a preview and after-party at Deitch Projects. The after-party seemed to be mostly long lines of thirsty and hungry hipsters waiting for free beer and dollar-fifty empanadas. Art was on the walls and floor but no one seemed interested in much beyond the complimentary Tom Sachs screwdriver (a real Stanley).

Germany was present with a booth run by Markus and Schaden.com along with the Marks of Honor project run by Nina Poppe and Verena Loewenhaupt. Look for Markus's Le Brea Matrix project in the near future. Oliver Sieber and Katja Stuke from the Dusseldorf-based Bohm/Kobayashi press also had ten years of their own artist book projects for offer, plus a new book by the NY photographer Ted Partin, Who are you this time?

The Foil booth from Japan had a signing with Rinko Kawauchi. Jason Fulford and Leanne Shapton of J+L had a few limited edition's of their books including a great portfolio by Landmasses and Railways author Bertrand Flueret. Mike Slack and Trisha Gabriel of The Ice Plant shared a booth with A-Jump and Ron Jude was present to sign several of his books. Mike Slack's new book Pyramids is fresh off the presses and will see some coverage here soon.

When Boredon Strikes author Joachim Schmid had a whole slew of his Blurb books of appropriated photos and no one seemed to mind. In fact, most readers seemed to enjoy his work so his unneeded bodyguards and team of lawyers were left to wander the Richard Prince exhibition of art books and posters.

Winfried Heininger and Kodoji press had a few fine books with a Jules Spinatsch retrospective, Jet Master (a collaboration by Salome Schmuki, Idan Hayosh and Corina Kunzli) and title on the student movement of Mexico in 1968. The Errata Editions books distributor DAP had Steidl's new Ed Ruscha limited edition (350 copies) On the Road for perusal. At 10,000 dollars and full of original c prints, the white gloves were necessary. They couldn't spare a review copy.

One of my favorite rooms was for the Arnhem based graphic design and typography school Werkplaats Typografie (Their website is fuckin nuts!). My single purchase of the whole fair was of a fine book of silkscreen 'make ready' sheets compiled by Hans Gremmen for 20 dollars. The poster/prints were discarded sheets found in the studio of Paul Wyber. I will give this book some coverage later.

Many rooms featured self-published artist books which is the main thrust of Printed Matter's concern. Paul Schiek of TBW had a table as did representatives of NY's Center for Book Arts. Thurston Moore and Ecstatic Peace! Library, his new publishing venture had a couple books - one a book of Morre's poems and another of an extended interview with Vito Acconci. Both will be distributed by DAP.

On the ground floor, many rare book dealers had great stuff of limited affordability. Harper Levine of Harper's Books has been digging deep with the Japanese books and had many titles I haven't ever seen before. Gordon of Anartist had a full wall of goodies and his usual bins of rare ephemera and catalogs.

One seller had a 100 dollar copy of the American Bricolage catalog from the Sperone Westwater gallery. This is a handmade book (with duct tape) made by Todd Alden with Chris Burden, Tim Hawkinson, Richard Wentworth and others which I had seen a year ago and has been on my list of wants since. Even though 100 bucks is a fairly good price, I passed on it and it remains on my list.

This fair was great but for whatever reason PS1 throws off my internal compass so I kept discovering rooms of tables that I hadn't seen during the first days. Luckily, I did stumble upon the William Kentridge cut-outs pasted to the walls of a stairwell. If only the James Turrell room was open, but, that isn't a book so I guess I saw most everything else that was worthwhile. Cheers to Printed Matter until next year.

Proud Flesh by Sally Mann

2009-10-01T23:59:00.004-04:00

When Sally Mann released her book At Twelve in the late-1980s the art world was rife with artists concerned with exploring the body politic and empowering female roles in society. While much of their work fell into the conceptual camp with Laurie Simmons, Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger - Mann's work sat somewhere between older traditional description and the politics of the day, and for me, represents an important stepping stone between the two. Mann's politics, although strongly present in her pictures, never threw out the baby with the bath water - she was also making complete photographs that were complimented by their politics and not replaced by them.

Mann has photographed her family for decades, but mostly her children have been the focus. These motherly gazes combine warm maternal attention and equal amounts of free spirit where both photographer and subject are exploring their roles as collaborators. Oddly, Mann's husband, Larry Mann, has not appeared in many of the images beyond playing a supporting role from the margins. Now after six years of work and with the release of her newest book Proud Flesh, Larry is present and it is the children who have receded into the shadows.

Proud Flesh is for me an emotionally exhausting work about withering. It has elements of 19th century clinical photography done with absolute loving care for the subject. Its factual surface is quickly replaced by metaphor and the haze of imperfection from the wet-plate collodion negatives she employs. In a few of the images, due to the choice of striped bedding on which the figure lays, we might be looking at a historical photograph take from Auschwitz or Bergen Belsen. With Larry's thin and seemingly weak legs dangling over the edge of a wooden cot, the soiled bedding following the contour of his legs, it is difficult for me to see this image without this harsh historical reference. The following image in the book, he is turned into a martyr - arms out stretched - the sheet underneath him now sharply crinkled like a bed of straw (or an imagined crown of thorns).

The surface texture plays such a strong role in these photos much of the seduction of these photos comes from the beauty of those imperfections. At times they can be nauseating, for their liquid streaks ooze over the images of aged flesh keeping viscera and bodily fluids as a second metaphoric subject. On the cover image, the disturbed collodion emulsion leaves a pattern which seems to be both looking at, and looking inside, the torso standing before the camera. Like Lee Friedlander's shadow self-portrait (see the cover of Like a One-eyed Cat) where his organs are replaced with a jumble of rocks and his head is filled with straw, Mann's image turns Larry's insides into a mix of man and machine - collodion cogs and gears. This is the most wishful, as it portrays the strongest sense of life and the perhaps even the possibility of escaping its mortality. He stands at table's edge with a steadying hand and a closed fist.

The most remarkable image for me appears as plate 20 and is captioned Time and the Bell (2008). Like the aforementioned cover image, this is an ideal as Mann has turned her husband's head and shoulders into a profile bust of marble - the washed out light tones give way to a few angular shapes of rich shadow. It could be a still life of artifacts from an artists work space, a table and a sculptural work in progress. The surprise of the photographic description, which is present in most of the photos in Proud Flesh, is so complex and engaging for me it is difficult to not have it outshine all of the rest.

Proud Flesh is beautifully printed and its large format scale is perfect for the subject. Essentially a companion piece to her last Gagosian Gallery book of collodion portraits of blurred and out of focus faces, it is elegant and well designed. The sole detractor for me is Mann's titling of the images which thankfully only appear at the end of the book on a caption page. Speak, Memory (2008); Xerxes Wept (2004); Tender Mercies (2007); The Beautiful Lie (2007); Pull Down Thy Vanity (2006); Each Single Angel (2005); The Nature of Loneliness (2008); Harness of Necessity (2008); Was Ever Love (2009; The Quality of Affection (2006). They try at wit and profundity - references galore - but their presence is heavy handed and an undeserving addition to the work. I'll manage to keep my attention affixed to the photographs which are eerily beautiful, poignant and perhaps some of her most personal and revealing to date.

Bibliographic by Jason Godfrey

2009-09-27T23:58:00.001-04:00

In the scholarly world of books about books, graphic designers and architects need love too. Just published by Laurence King, Jason Godfrey's Bibliographic is a must for the design conscious.

Bibliographic is not a comprehensive collection but a selection of 100 important books of fine graphic design. This cross-section includes many obviously influential works (Tschichold, Tolmer, Kepes, Moholy-Nagy) but also obscure titles such as two books from early type foundaries and Ben Shahn's Love and Joy about Letters. (The later I have owned for years and despite the title, I am embarrassed to have not spent more time to consider how great Shahn was as a designer and typographer.)

Bibliographic is organized into chapters of ; Typography, Sourcebooks, Instructional, Histories, Anthologies, and Monographs. Each double page spread is dedicated to the examination of one book at a time through short descriptions and many illustrations. Mouthwatering examples of typography in Manuale Typographicum (1954) from Hermann Zapf and Aaron Burns' Typography (1961) put their craft into practice with brilliance.

Like photobooks, several of these examples are so scarce that they are beyond the reach of most readers, Alfred Tolmer's Mise en Page from 1931 would be a welcome volume for a reprint with its impressive production techniques as would Gyorgy Kepes' influential Language of Vision from 1944. The designer's library, perhaps even more than a photographer's, is a working collection where education and influence should be importantly within arm's reach.

In his introduction, the most prolific of writers on design Steven Heller, makes mention of the now common feeling of "book envy" and the desire to own these books perhaps much like the Parr/ Badger series has done for hundreds of photobooks. Thankfully, Godfrey's gives us a guide through these examples along with an extensive bibliography supplied by today's leading designers. Bibliographic will certainly inspire many new book searches and additions to our already sagging bookshelves.

In Victor Hug's novel Notre Dame de Paris the archdeacon Claude Frollo warns of the danger that books could kill architecture. For hundreds of years repeated attempts to hammer out and interpret basic formal rules has inspired discussion and rebellion found in the most contemporary of design. The book Modern: Architecture Books from the Marzona Collection published in 2003 as a companion to a traveling exhibition (How to Build? The Modernist Book) features a couple hundred examples that have shaped this discussion.

Egidio Marzona is an art collector who's interest in Minimal Art, Atre Provera, Conceptual Art and Earthworks has amassed over 1000 works and thousands of books on various subjects. His interest in architecture and design led to this book and exhibition. This small format book is interesting for sure but its design and generally conservative use of illustrations (only two - three per book) will make readers wish for a deeper look into these amazing titles. The exhibition included several hundred examples where this catalog only includes a fraction.

Dan Graham's For Publication fits well within the Marzona collection's normal association with Concept or Minimal Art as will Gordon Matta-Clark's Wallspaper. Paola Navone and Bruno Orlandoni's Architettura "Radicale" (1974) looks to be a fascinating but difficult to find item which I wish was illustrated by more than one internal spread.

Three essays, one a discussion between Marzona and Elizabetta Bresciani (the show's curator), provide a good tour through the history of these books and the shifts in architectural approach and attitude. For me these essays were indispensable as there are no individual descriptions of each book. This void makes Modern mostly a volume of visual candy that will fascinate and frustrate fans of design, architecture and bookcraft. Perhaps a gifted author like a Jason Godfrey from the architecture world could be capable of compiling a great book on this worthy subject.

5B4 Fund Raiser and Print Offer

2009-09-23T22:09:00.003-04:00

Since my main part time employer from the past eleven years has decided that I can survive yet another month of having absolutely no work, I am forced to hang out my tin cup and ask for help.

As I tend to do, I am offering a nice incentive for donations on my Print Offer page by way of one set of large 24 X 36 inch prints of my photographs from the former Yugoslavia. These are final prints, signed and numbered in an edition of only 2.

They were printed by Darin Mickey in 2003 and retouched by the late Tracy Baron (1975-2008). These prints were created for a traveling exhibition of mine at the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute in New York in 2003 and Washington DC in 2004.

As I mentioned these are 24 X 36 inch color coupler prints, signed and numbered on the back. These are not flawed and have no surface problems. These are perfect gallery prints in an edition of only two. The second print in the edition was framed and hung in the show. Those are not currently for sale.

So...I have one print each of these images in this size and I would ask donations of a $1000.00 for a print. They would be mailed loosely rolled and carefully protected. Postage is included for shipping worldwide. Please email me to assure availability. jeffladd99(at)hotmail(dot)com

Also over the next few days I will be listing more books and other items including very rare posters and unique ephemera on the Photobook Exchange.

I sincerely thank you for any help. If you like what I do with 5B4 and can afford an item or two from any of my offers on the Print Offer page or 5B4 Photobook Exchange it would help a great deal in keeping my head above water. Thank you.

The 3rd Person Archive by John Stezaker

2009-09-23T08:40:00.004-04:00

"He walked down Broadway to 72nd street, turned east to Central Park West, and followed it to 59th street and the statue of Columbus. There he turned east once again, moving along Central Park South until Madison Avenue, and then cut right, walking a few blocks, he continued south for a mile, came to the juncture of Broadway and Fifth Avenue at 23rd street, paused to look at the Flatiron Building, and then shifted course, taking a westward turn until he reached Seventh Avenue, at which point he veered left and progressed further downtown. At Sheridan Square he turned east again, ambling down Waverly Place, crossing Sixth Avenue, and continuing on to Washington Square. He walked through the arch and made his way among the crowds..." -Paul Auster City of Glass

Looking through John Stezaker's latest book The 3rd Person Archive just published by Walther Konig, one is faced with postage stamp sized images of walking human figures cut from a copy of John Hammerton's 1920 encyclopedia Countries of the World. These tiny figures, like the ever-present flaneurs who occupy the backgrounds of paintings and photographs, are clipped from their role as extras and thrust into the position of main character.

I was reminded of Auster's protagonist Daniel Quinn from City of Glass as he surveils a man over several days and records his seemingly aimless wanderings through Manhattan. Here, Stezaker uses images that are in actuality many different people (all men) but in the way he has sequenced his "archive" one gets the feeling that perhaps we are also surreptitiously trailing these figures, but because of the severe croppings, our sightline is limited and similar to looking through a long lens or telescope.

The structure of The 3rd Person Archive is broken into three parts. The first limits the clippings to include a single figure within various urban spaces on sidewalks, street corners and in city parks. The second section includes two figures within each frame, and in the third section - three figures or more.

For those heady enough to tackle Michel de Certeau's theorization of the walker in the city (The Practice of Everyday Life), you may find relevance in Stezaker's archive. His subjects compose a story out of fragments and alterations of spaces, preventing the ability to see the whole much like an aimless walker puts up resistance to a mapped and ordered space by utilizing shortcuts and momentary diversions. If one agrees with de Certeau that "to walk is to lack a place" then Stezaker's flanuers, like Auster's protagonist, may represent the "indefinite process of being absent."

Stezaker plays with scale on the printed page by reproducing the clippings at their largest a couple inches square, to tiny pictures where the reader strains to make sense of the image. The effect is zooming in and out on our subjects emphasizing the thought of surveillance where "he" cannot escape our panoptic eye.

The 3rd Person Archive is the size of a hardcover novel with a rounded spine and elegant presentation. Though it might look printed in a straight forward process common to books of text, this book utilizes a six color stochastic printing with beautiful results. No texts accompany the images which are only divided into their sections by the change in the numbering system that appears at the bottom of the facing page.

Stezaker is a brilliant artist who through appropriation and little alteration continues to shift our perceptions. This archive, which was started in 1976, looks much different from his collage work with film stills or postcards, but within its seeming simplicity he has created a small book of wanderers which is anything but pedestrian.

Japanese Photobooks of the 60s and 70s

2009-09-20T12:56:00.003-04:00

I have had the pleasure of standing in front of a friend's bookcase of some 600+ photobooks - all from Japan - and not knowing where to start. It was a great experience but one in which I was in frustrating need of a guide. Finally, the long awaited survey of the most experimental period of photobooks from Japan is out - Ivan Vartanian and Ryuichi Kaneko's Japanese Photobooks of the 60s and 70s, just released by Aperture.

Up through the mid-50s Japanese photography seems to have followed aspects of the traditional picture arts with subject matter that was describing the lyricism of urban and pastoral life. The book which starts off this volume is Hiroshi Hamaya's Snow Land from 1956 which contains photographs made in small villages in Japan's Niigata Prefecture. This extended essay concerns itself with a New Year festival during which the villagers pray for a bountiful crops. The approach can reflect influence of straight documentary photographers world-wide and the sense of war and the rapid change Japan was experiencing is kept at a distance. Oddly, it has the feel at times of being an essay made through Western eyes with its philosophically acceptable and psychologically safe stance. Its purity at odds with reality.

The explosion of radical description, perhaps fueled by William Klein's Life is Good & Good for You in New York - a book most often cited as an influence to many photographers everywhere - brought younger generations of photographers willing to tackle the harsher realities of country, describing them with immediate, instinctive flair which embraced flaw in process as a new metaphor. Following Ken Domon's series of Hiroshima survivors in 1958, Shomei Tomatsu's Nagasaki 11.02 drew from traditional documentary traditions and pushed the descriptive values to abstraction and an uncomfortable psychological environ. Neither of these books are featured here but have been cited at length elsewhere - an omission which I will address later.

Current fanatics of Japanese books will cite the Provoke collective of Yutaka Takanashi, Daido Moriyama, Koji Taki, and Takuma Nakahira as the high point of driving photographic descriptions to the limits - its name was Provoke after all. These stream of consciousness and ambiguous statements of emotion and reaction were an attempt at "grasping with our own eyes those fragments of reality that cannot possibly be captured with existing language, actively putting forth materials against language and against thought." During this period the now most famous (or at the time infamous) books appeared with Bye Bye Photography, For a language to Come and Takanashi's Towards the City.

It would be a mistake and inaccurate to homogenize all of the provocative Japanese works into one mold of blur, contrast and grain and this volume does its best to present a wider understanding of period and attitudes relating to approach and that is its strength. This is not a comprehensive cataloging of every book from this period or even the most important - like I mentioned, Tomatsu and Domon's masterworks are not represented here (perhaps for the sake of escaping redundancies since they have been covered elsewhere). It does however limit its scope to only 41 books and I do wish, even at the risk of being redundant, that the authors extended their survey to either a larger choice or along a more extended timeline. It does after all actually include a couple books from the mid-50s and a couple from the 1980s.

One difficulty of assembling such a survey is the inclusion of women artists. Perhaps not the fault of the authors but of the period of productivity, there is only one book by a woman represented - Miyako Ishiuchio's Apartment from 1978. Granted I do not have a deep enough knowledge of books made from women at the time and books worthy of note to cite specific examples but my desire for a study of books along a wider timeline would have seen the inclusion of female voices. This is one aspect of male to female ratio that has plagued photography in general but here I feel a gap which would be interesting to explore.

Ivan Vartanian, who has immersed himself physically and as a scholar into Japanese culture, proves to be a fine guide for us less informed as he provides a lengthy introduction covering the period and individual essays for each book. This collection comes from the library of Ryuchi Kaneko and the extensive illustrations and attention to longer examination of individual books (each is given 4-6 pages) is an important contribution into books which most of us will never experience first-hand. Japanese Photobooks of the 60s and 70s is nicely printed with a design sensitive to its function.

In an interview which is included in this volume, Daido Moriyama - perhaps the most prolific of book-makers aside from Nobuyoshi Araki - mentions his desire to create objects which preserve a feeling or impulse. This volume displays some of the best (yet still unfamiliar), playful and imaginative books which have driven photography outside the literal boundaries of country and stale traditions and into new and uncharted territory that still, forty years later, has the ability to shock and surprise even the initiated.

Voyeur by Hans-Peter Feldmann

2009-09-16T23:59:00.001-04:00

In response to the recent dust-up over Joachim Schmid's book When Boredom Strikes I thought I'd mention Hans-Peter Feldmann's book Voyeur which has been released in a fourth edition by Walther Konig in Cologne.

Voyeur is approximately 250 pages of appropriated photos, some famous and some unknown, presented as a mass of images - a chaotic view of history and human existence. Each page, which may be illustrated with half a dozen images or more is a tangle of context. The blurring of history creates a surreal vision of society and the world that is both familiar and strange.

Movie stills, porn mags, photojournalism, advertising, amateur photos, art, and scientific images are recontextualized apart from their authors (no individual credit is given) and organized onto the page where hierarchy is left only to their sizing.

I have seen a third edition of this same book but the double page spreads are in a different order. The same photographs are presented but the sequence is different leading me to conclude that the content is dealt with by the author as a never-ending stream that can shift and change without altering the overall effect.

I find this book interesting for another reason - information overload. Partly due to its intentional small size and with the reproductions in all black and white the individual power of each image gives way to a general tenor of complacency. Photos of vast suffering sitting next to bright smiles somehow find a common denominator in this "world of paper."

In relation to Schmid, this work is a conceptual reordering of representation and authorship. Those whose knees were jerking to hang Schmid from his thumbs over copyright might find another artist to tar and feather here. Or maybe they would be satisfied by the fact that on the colophon page, Feldmann thanks "all the photographers whose pictures have been used for this work."

Clinic by Remy Faucheux (ed.)

2009-09-13T14:04:00.002-04:00

Last year when I had knee surgery for a torn ACL I had the odd experience of walking into the operating room and being instructed to jump up onto the table myself. In TV shows and movies, the patient is always wheeled in on a gurney and lifted onto the table so I had never imagined having to go in on my own two feet - maybe ligament surgery is not dramatic enough for television. I also hadn't imagined the table to be the same as they use to administer a lethal injection, with its thin arm extensions angled off to the sides. As they velcro-ed my arms and spiked my IV I asked the doctor what his favorite color was - I fell off the planet before I heard his answer.

The book Clinic organized by Remy Faucheux steps into the sanitized world of hospitals and medical care with the work of 11 photographers (Olivier Amsellem, Constant Anee, Eric Baudelaire, Geoffroy de Boismenu, Christophe Bourguedieu, Jacqueline Hassink, Albrecht Kunkel, Ville Lenkkeri, Matthew Monteith, Mario Palmieri, and Stephan Ruiz) and a supplement by the Useful Photography group (Kessels, van der Meer, Germain, Cleen and Aarsman).

Most of us imagine what our hospital experience will be, like I mention above, we enter with anxiety, hope, and fear and the cold mix of science and technology accentuating these emotions. We would prefer to be elsewhere than among the ergonomically designed machines that peek into our bodies seeking flaw and disease. Like the old Woody Allen joke, "I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens," being inside a hospital makes it hard to put your head in the sand, everything around you reminds you of your physical body and its vulnerability.

Clinic presents each photographer with their own section of 10 to 15 images along with a short statement. Albrecht Kunkel starts the book appropriately with portraits of women during their first pregnancies. Less fear inducing than many of the other projects, Kunkels straight forward portraits exude a calm and grace from the subjects which sit staring back at us with a mix of knowledge and anticipation.

Matthew Monteith's contribution follows comprising a group of portraits and still-lifes of machines and hospital staff. His large format camera orders the twists of tubes and cables with a concentration on colors that stand apart from the rest of the scene. A bright red Mickey Mouse tapestry hangs behind the arm of an x-ray machine and red electrical sockets betray the calculated whiteness of a room. The best image is of a baby in an incubator bathed in a blue ultra-violet light, its tiny form encased like a lab specimen.

My favorite two projects are from Geoffroy de Boismenu and Christophe Bourguedieu. De Boismenu photographs within the operating room and choses to describe his subjects just before or just after the procedure. In preperation, the patient is draped in blue-green cloth and only the abstract form of flesh shows through. Beautifully lit, the hues of the dark palette conceal more than they reveal. The subject, which seems life-less most of the time, is surrounded by large expanses of darkness. This are the most disconcerting of all of the projects for me as it is even more fear-inducing than another artist's included in this book, Mario Palmieri's which concerns itself with a hospital morgue. These invasive surgeries with flesh which resembles wax and roughly sewn suchers grotesquely holding the body together are not for the faint of heart.

The other favorite is Christophe Bourguedieu who followed emergency crews as they make home visits to people in distress. I like this work for its escape from the extremely rigid formalism which most of the artists use as a descriptive device. Perhaps medium format or even 35mm digital, the human element of health care is more evident in these photos. These crews are the link between the outside world and the internal hospital world where moments of professionalism and genuine signs of emotion can be sensed. A group of men stand over a sheet-covered body in a park, their body language conveying defeat. In another, a man casually stands watching a colleague administer an injection into the blueish form of a man - his look a mix of ambiguity and interest.

The last section on a different Matte paper is a supplement by the Useful Photography group. Its concern is not with common ideas of beauty but with how an image over time may shift from pure disgust to something of fascination. The choice of vintage images shows antiquated machines with hard edges and threatening appearances along with tumors, and organs plainly presented for investigation. The oddness of the medical world is apparent as patients seem to be swallowed up by the machines they are hooked to with comic effect. That is until one gets to the last page which is a grid of tongue cancers. Where as the other projects find a comfort level with their subjects, this set will surely unnerve the viewer into aligning with their real or imagined fears.

The approach of the other photographers, although the images are well made, are formally alike which is my only criticism of the selection. Like the environs they describe, Clinic is clean and sterile in its design from its sans-serif fonts to the openness of the page layouts. Essays by Michal Poivert and Stephane Velut open the book. Clinic was published in 2008 by Images En Manoeuvres Editions.

New York City: Museum of Complaint

2009-09-07T11:59:00.000-04:00

How major cities exist at all seems nearly miraculous. Millions of people living in close quarters, all of free will and with separate interests makes for a potentially unharmonious place. The logistics of infrastructure alone are overwhelming - providing water, ridding the place of waste, keeping people from constant murder and mayhem, transportation, health concerns. A new book from Steidl, New York City: Museum of Complaint gives insight into many of the individual concerns of the citizens of one such metropolis, Manhattan.

Culled by Matthew Bakkom from the municipal archives, the Museum of Complaint is a collection of 122 letters to the various mayors of New York from Edward Holland in the 1750s to John Lindsay in the late 60s. The nature of our governance is to at least let someone be heard and this collection covers the bases from the humorous to the heartbreaking. One is a woman's desperate plea to Mayor Laguardia to help her find a husband. Another is from a young man who's baseball was stolen by a policeman (who plays baseball on his off hours) and the boy demands his $1.25 to buy a new one. One woman can't stand seeing the newest bathing suits made of mesh material. Others complain of communists, swarms of children, pawnshops, spitters, dogs, organ grinders, prostitutes - their creativity and insight into what disturbs the everyday citizen is fascinating. We all have pet peeves and small disturbances which we can't shake, conflating them into a larger part of our lives, more than rationality can suppress.

The first letters in this volume are noteworthy for the flowing script and idiom of the day - several of the writers end with "and your petitioners shall ever pray." The language is beautiful and parsing these letters for their meaning is a joy. One wants to pave over a street leading to houses and an inaccessible boat slip which has become ruddy. "Humbly showeth that the said street / or the greater part thereof, is not without great difficulty passable for carts or other carriages by reason of its declivity and the pavements thereof being very much broken and out of repair... and your petitioners shall ever pray" (signed) John Thurman and David Abeely.

The respect shown towards officials varies as society progresses. Some letters during the Second World War have illustrative sketches comparing the Mayor to Hitler. Other writers reprimand Fiorello Laguardia for denouncing The Feuhrer. "Sir, I am sorry I voted for you. Your deliberate insult of Feuhrer Hitler was planned Jewish propaganda and you were its mouthpiece. You are unfit for office and a disgrace to New York. You are a consummate American politician - the curse of our country. I am sorry I voted for you." (signed) I Siegel.

New York City: Museum of Complaint is a large format book which reproduces the original letters and they are beautiful objects on their own. Of the fine production values, I have no complaints, only a compulsion to write to Matthew Bakkom, to thank him for this wonderful project.

Capitolio by Christopher Anderson

2009-08-31T23:26:00.000-04:00

Early into Christopher Anderson's Capitolio we are faced with a horned demon exorcised by a cross held aloft over its head. It is this one image which metaphorically sums up the presidency of Hugo Chavez and the polarized nation of Venezuela. The poor tend to see Chavez as a saint while the wealthy few - the four hundred year old elite - paint him as the anti-Christ.

Caracas has become the murder capital of the world and Anderson ushers us into this violent street life filling the journey with a tension that lingers through the book. Guns are drawn and a sidewalk becomes a smear of blood, hoods are lined against a wall arms spread - the dark shadows impenetrable and threatening.

Anderson allows some breathing room with a short parade of architecture and the general populace, less threatening and full of life - sexuality and sensuality perhaps providing the relief from the day to day pressures. Industry is nationalized and the petro dollars that used to flow freely become the source of Chavez's New Deal, Bolivarian Revolution but portrayed by Anderson, the industries seem run by incompetents. It all has the tenor of waste and unprofessionalism. One sleeps on some torn cardboard while the machines sit idle; another man seemingly gets swallowed by the truck he repairs.

Anderson tends to portray Chavez as some type of creeping, dictator-in-waiting who has two faces - one a populist president, the other a demon in sheep's clothing. One spread compares a portrait of Simon Bolivar opposite a stencil of Chavez's face over which someone has written 'capo' - meaning mafia leader. The politicians presumably in his cabinet fair no better as one tugs at his pants wearing a suit which seems to be far too constricting. By book's end Chavez is shown with the same horrific relish as a monster in a B movie - a Tor Johnson of Latin America whose base instincts of greed and gluttony cause his eyes to roll into the back of his head.

Anderson owes much to predecessors like Klein and Alvermann for the way he has constructed his journey book-wise. The photos bleed across double page spreads and are chopped and diced to make graphic layouts with dynamic results but for all of the visual excitement I feel the content relies too much on their trickery. Anderson tries his hand at using the same image in cinematic ways by blowing it up in stages to create a zoom effect. One spread that does work wonderfully of a streetcar and its chanting passengers is a visual delight.

Capitolio's political editorializing seems unexpectedly right-wing and at worst, propagandistic. Is this simply representing the opposing views? If so, why does the last "chapter" before villainizing Chavez describe hoards of soldiers in the streets resembling a scene from Pinochet's playbook. This closely followed by a stencil saying: "Men are like stars, some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive." The pages that follow are of Chavez enjoying mass public adoration.

Capitolio's bright communist red cloth covers are certain to get attention, as is the elegant presentation and printing which is finely accomplished with a great looking matte lustre. Capitolio was published by Editorial RM out of Mexico City.

Anderson has said "I sometimes imagine Caracas as a living breathing animal. Obscured by the darkness it appears both violent and sensual, but perhaps it's true nature will only be revealed at the moment it devours me." Those contradiction abound in Latin America but it seems to me that what has devoured Anderson is his own bias, which seems evident throughout most of this book.

When Boredom Strikes by Joachim Schmid

2009-08-25T21:48:00.002-04:00

When I first wrote about Joachim Schmid I asked several questions about the current state of mass image making; with all of the images that exist, is their continued proliferation necessary especially in a time now where cell phones now have cameras? We are producing more images than ever, could the reliance on images and visual material alter our vocabularies and the evolution of our ways of communication? Is this all just one more metaphoric example of how we do things impulsively and fill our lives with objects that we tend to store away and ignore until we decide to clean house? So the next time you aim the cell phone camera or put the Leica to your eye, consider what it is that you are bringing into this world. Is it necessary? Will you love it and take care of it? Or will they fall into the hands of others to see what we can no longer see?

Schmid has continued his investigation into the habits of amateur photography with a series of Blurb produced "Black" books. The project "Other People's Photographs" came about by trolling the internet for material on image sharing sites like Flickr and using keywords to find patterns of photographic behavior "focusing on the repetition of word, rather than the repetition of image. These are books about photography but from a more “light-hearted” perspective."

The first in this "Black Book" series is called When Boredom Strikes and it holds 156 photos and captions made when the "photographer" was bored. Boredom causes people to point the camera where ever and however the impulse directs - at shoes, at pets, at the ceiling, at the fabric patters of their pants. In some ways these pictures are experiments on the part of the taker and in other ways they are disposable images made just to fill time. Often full of humor and "light-hearted" as Schmid describes but, as a whole, the book is loaded with sadness. The subtext of the amount of boredom at work, at play, in everyday life can't be ignored. One image even is of a man's penis while he is masturbating. We have become a society that is even bored while masturbating.

On a positive level one could say that when we are bored is when we actually start to really examine our environments. This book proves that we are at least inquisitive to "see" through photography what those surroundings look like in photos but I doubt that most of these images would be considered a second time by the taker at later dates. Whether or not this is true, they are here for us to consider.

When Boredom Strikes is the size of a hardcover novel, vertical in format and printed in text quality black and white. By reducing all of the images to black and white, Schmid levels the field of good to bad photos. The captions reveal various attitudes and oddly, many seem to be apologetic in referring to their "creations" made while boredom struck. In combination with these apologies and the fact that these were posted to image sharing websites is a curious means of admittance.

Behavior and photography is endlessly fascinating now that everything has a camera attached to it. The images may not be often worthy of serious consideration for many viewers (although Schmid would argue the exact opposite I am sure) but when collected and presented as a common impulse, we see where we connect and what that connection says about us. It is a group portrait of sorts, for better or for worse.

Note: For other series, check out Schmid's "White" books and the limited "Grey" versions as well. http://schmid.wordpress.com/

Born of Fire: Steel by C.A. Stachelscheid

2009-08-22T23:51:00.004-04:00

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the new book of photographs made by Ulrich Mack in the Ruhr region of the industrial landscape from the late 1950s. One of the industries occupying that land was steel smelting plants and a recent book discovery called Born of Fire: Steel offers an inside tour to some of those same plants that Mack photographed from the exterior. These two books sitting side by side offer very different approaches and tenor to the industry of the region.

Born of Fire: Steel could be just another 1950s era book championing an industry through mediocre photography and an overinflated sense of the public interest in such subjects, except the photography is actually the strong point. Yes there is the ubiquitous sentimentality and romanticism of the workers. All seem to be approaching a day in the smelting plant as an adventure instead of the grueling, sweat box that it probably was, and whatever exhaustion may have been present in such factories has been replaced by faces full of fascination or steady concentration.

The photos were made by C. A. Stachelscheid and the book was designed by Dr Wolf Strache. He opens his essay with a picture of a "Modern industrial man" in profile presumably stoking a furnace. Lit by an amber light offset by the bluish hues of the background he is a portrait of knowledge and professionalism - a perfect companion to the machines and infrastructure of the plant. Stachelscheid adds captions which appear in-between groupings of photographs and their content reads with the same fervor as a propaganda booklet.

"Even the most advanced technology cannot do without him. He is one of many; his name not recorded. But the camera reveals his qualities, his bearing, his being. Here is strength; but it is not to be wasted. Here is courage; but governed by caution. Here is also, plainly apparent, a sense of responsibility for complicated and costly processes."

Stachelscheid works all steps of the steel-making process from mining to the final products with a strong concentration on smelting steps which offers some of the more visually dynamic photos. Sparks flying and yellow streams of molten steel flowing from blast furnaces into ingot molds are favorite moments of photographers but
Stachelscheid's photos also reveal a concern for making complete photographs. This mediation is addressed in the captions as well; "Has the photographer assembled an effective composition just for the sake of the shot? A natural suspicion, but an unjustified one. This is how bent sheets are nested for better transportation."

The printing of Born of Fire is the third character of the book beyond the photographs and captions. The four-color offset renders colors in aged and unrealistic hues which enter in an element of fantasy to the "reality" of the work floor. Looking at times like hand-tinted photos, they are impressionistic and idealized. The close-up still-lifes overemphasize the clash of color and a few seem to follow in the steps of Keld-Helmer Petersen. One downright surreal image of a man measuring the precision form of a steel tube has the man's head, shoulders and arms seemingly trapped inside the ring of steel offset by a disturbing paint can of red gore entering into the right of the frame - quite a photographic magic act.

Some of the pairings of photos across page spreads is the other element that lifts Born of Fire above the expected. Certainly not all, but several are amazing compliments which reveal fine instincts on the part of the publisher Strache in understanding the difference between a book and individual photos.

Is Born of Fire: Steel a great book? Not by a long shot but it surely has its moments of surprise that extend beyond the quirks of printing and spectacular subject. I was certainly pleasantly surprised enough to pick it up several times so for 10-15 dollars you might take a chance. Published in 1956 by Verlag DBS Dr. Wolf Strache, Stuttgart.

Errata Editions Books on Books #5-8

2009-08-17T19:02:00.006-04:00

I've had some trouble finding the time to write lately because it is crunch time for the next titles in the Errata Editions Books on Books series. I am trying to keep all of our contributors on the deadline for printing in October and, well, it is a bit like herding cats. Make that, herding cats that are really good photographers and writers.

The response to the first four titles in the series has been great even with the severe downturn in the economy, so much so we are ready to publish the next four books. People have understood our project and approach and we thank everyone for the feedback and support. Especially thank you to the artists who are turning out to be the biggest supporters of all. Out of over a dozen that we have approached in just the last few months, only one decided not to participate (and even they did so throwing high compliments towards our books and mission). That, and our being named 'Publishing House of the Year' at PhotoEspana assures us that we are on the right track.

The next four, Books on Books #5-8, share the connection with a photographer working a specific place at a specific time but each with very different results. And they are...

Books on Books #5: William Klein’s Life is Good & Good for You in New York - Trance Witness Revels is regarded as one of the most influential and groundbreaking photo books created in the last half-century. Published in 1956, its visual energy captured the rough and tumble streets of New York like no artbook had before or has done since. Books on Books 5 reproduces in its entirety Klein’s brilliantly photographed and designed magnum opus. The American Art historian, Max Kozloff, contributes an essay called William Klein and the Radioactive Fifties. ISBN: 978-1-935004-08-0, Hardcover, 160 pages, 9.5 x 7, $39.95. Release date Trade Edition: February 2010

Books on Books #6: Yutaka Takanashi’s Toshi-e (Towards the City) is a landmark two-volume set of books from one one of the founders of the avant-garde Japanese magazine Provoke. Published in 1974 and considered the most luxurious of all of the Provoke era publications, its brooding, pessimistic tone describes the state of contemporary life in an unnamed city in Japan undergoing economic and industrial change. Books on Books 6 reproduces all one hundred sixteen black and white photographs that make up the two volumes. Photographer, writer and book historian Gerry Badger, contributes an essay called Image of the City - Yutaka Takanashi's Toshi-e. ISBN: 978-1-935004-10-3, Hardcover, 176 pages, 9.5 x 7, $39.95. Release date Trade Edition: February

Where the first two in this set address politics and class with a more metaphoric approach, the next two do so in more overt ways.

Books on Books #7: David Goldblatt’s In Boksburg stands as one of the most important observations of a middle-class white community in South Africa during the apartheid years. Published in 1980, it presents an accumulation of everyday details from the community of Boksburg through which a larger portrait is revealed of white societal values within a racially divided state. Books on Books 7 reproduces all seventy-one black and white photographs as well as Goldblatt’s eloquent introduction to the work. The noted writer and editor, Joanna Lehan, contributes a contemporary essay written for this volume. ISBN: 978-1-935004-12-7, Hardcover, 112 pages, 9.5 x 7, $39.95. Release date Trade Edition: February

Books on Books #8: Koen Wessing's Chili, September 1973 is a shocking document from a socially concerned and politically engaged Dutch photojournalist. Published in 1973, just months after the fall of Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’etat, it describes the tense days of the military attempt to root out public opposition in the streets of Santiago. Books on Books 8 reproduces every page spread from Wessing’s gritty documentation of Chile’s darkest historical moment. The art historian and film theorist, Pauline Tereehorst, contributes a contemporary essay called The Man in the Grey Suit. ISBN: 978-1-935004-14-1, Hardcover, 64 pages, 9.5 x 7, $39.95. Release date Trade Edition: February

As before each of our studies also includes Book Production notes, Biographies and Bibliographies of each artist. As the start of any series is really an experiment, we have made some improvements based on the feedback from the first four titles. We have increased the page lengths so as to allow larger illustrations and many more double page spreads. We are continuing to approach a variety of writers and matching them with books so there we can offer a chance to hear many voices in the series.

The limited edition of sets of all four will be available for pre-order starting now. These are special copies with a tip-on image debossed into the book cloth. Shipping for the limited editions is planned for Mid-December with the trade edition hitting stores and other venues in the Spring so please SPREAD THE WORD. To purchase a set of the limited editions please use the paypal button on the shop page of the Errata Editions website.

Also for the regular readers of 5B4 I will be doing blog posts from on-press in China during the book production so you can follow the daily progress of printing. If you like what we are doing, write about us. This series depends on you. Please help in any way you can.

Thank you for your support from the Errata team - Valerie, Jeff and Ed.