Wake.

Wake. Photographs by Adam Jeppesen. Steidl Dangin, Gottingen, 2008. 48 pp., 27 color illustrations, 6½x8".

"Danish documentary filmmaker and photographer Adam Jeppesen’s Wake was assembled over a period of several months in the backwoods of Finland.

Rather than fall prey to Nordic melancholy while in seclusion, Jeppesen constructed a poetic, dreamlike sequence from his archive of past images that, in its arrangement, reflects the emotional and aesthetic clarity afforded by solitude.

Composed of personal work made while traveling on assignment for the past seven years, this monograph is a personal psychological study. As the title suggests, the images in this volume inhabit the liminal space between darkness and twilight, the torpid state between sleeping and waking. The specificity of people, places and things gives way to light, color and texture.

This series is infused with a quiet drama, an impression that something just out of reach lies below the surface of each image."

The Fog Will Clear, The Snow Will Melt.

The Fog Will Clear, The Snow Will Melt. Photographs by Einar Hansen. Essay by Angus Carlyle, Conversation between Angus Carlyle and Einar Hansen. Einar Hansen, Norway, 2008. 106 pp., 39 color illustrations., 9¾x6¾".

'If you look at other images, it is not going to be dark all the time, the fog will clear, the snow will melt, the sunlight is going to shift across the floor, empty spaces will be occupied and later left...'

A Certain Kind Of Monotone - conversation between Angus Carlyle and Einar Hansen.

A magical, magical book title - and beautifully put together book.

Edward S. Curtis.

Edward S. Curtis. Photographs by Edward S. Curtis. Text by Dr. Hans Christian Adam. Taschen, Los Angeles, 2004. 240 pp., 7¾x9½".

"For over thirty years, photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) traveled the length and breadth of North America, seeking to record in words and images the traditional life of its vanishing indigenous inhabitants. Like a man possessed, he strove to realize his life’s work, which culminated in the publication of his encyclopedia “The North American Indian.”

In the end, this monumental work comprised twenty textual volumes and twenty portfolios with over 2000 illustrations. No other photographer has created a larger oeuvre on this theme, and it is Curtis, more than any other, who has crucially molded our conception of Native Americans.

This book shows the photographer’s most impressive pictures and vividly details his journey through life, which led him not only into the prairies but also into the film studios of Hollywood."

Sibusiso Mbhele and his Fish Helicopter.

Sibusiso Mbhele and his Fish Helicopter. Work by Sibusiso Mbhele. Text by William Sloan and Koto Bolofo. powerHouse Books, New York, 2002. 186 pp., 120 color illustrations, 11x14¼".

"Sibusiso Mbhele and his Fish Helicopter is a cinematic look at the life and work of a visionary South African outsider artist who Sparked the jealousy, wrath, and ultimate rejection of his own community with his wondrous creations of Scrap metal flying machines.

Based on his eponymous film originally Screened in 2000 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Koto Bolofo's first monograph documents a young talented South African sculptor forced to flee his rural home-a full-sized, hand-built metal facsimile of a helicopter that created an odd Sight against a background of traditional thatched huts in his African village.

Self-taught, Mbhele earned his living creating Scrap metal sculptures of planes, cars, and bicycles from wire, car wrecks, oil tin drums, and other recycled materials. After making the headlines of the local newspapers, Mbhele's neighbors, jealous of his recognition and success, destroyed his creations and his beloved helicopter home. They had him jailed, and though he was later released, the tension and threat of further trouble was enough to make Mbhele take flight from his precious helicopter haven and head for the Security of the city and the unknown.


Koto Bolofo was born in South Africa and until 1992 lived in exile in Europe as a political refugee. A top fashion and commercial photographer, Bolofo's portrait work has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Interview, GQ, Vogue, and Marie Claire, among others.

In addition to 'Sibusiso Mbhele and His Fish Helicopter,' Bolofo has written, produced, and directed four other films shown at international film festivals over the past decade. He has exhibited his work in galleries in London and Paris, as well as at the Louvre. Bolofo currently resides in France.


William Sloan is the Head of the Circulating Film and Video Library at The Museum of Modern Art, NY. "

Sawdust Mountain.

Sawdust Mountain. Photographs by Eirik Johnson. Text by Tess Gallagher, Elizabeth Brown. Poem by David Guterson. Aperture, 2009. 144 pp., 70 color illustrations, 11x11".

"A culmination of four years of photographing throughout Oregon, Washington and Northern California, Sawdust Mountain focuses on the tenuous relationship between industries reliant upon natural resources and the communities they support.

Timber and salmon are the bedrock of a regional Northwest identity, but the environmental impact of these declining industries has been increasingly at odds with the contemporary ideal of sustainability. In this, his second book, Johnson reveals a landscape imbued with an uncertain future-no longer the region of boomtowns built upon the riches of massive old-growth forests.

Johnson, a Seattle native, describes his photographs as, a melancholy love letter of sorts, my own personal ramblings...' Through this poetic approach, Sawdust Mountain records a region affected by historic economic complexities and, by extension, one aspect of our fraught relationship with the environment in the twenty-first century."

Working from Memory.

Working from Memory. Collected Stories. Photographs and text by William Christenberry. Edited by Susanne Lange. Steidl, Gottingen, 2008. 112 pp., 50 color illustrations, 9x10".

"Working from Memory is a collection of stories by the renowned photographer, painter and sculptor William Christenberry.

Based on conversations with author and critic Susanne Lange, these stories elaborate the artist’s memories of the Deep South, in whose rich literary tradition they are steeped.

In a lyrical but lucid prose, they set personal experience against the backdrop of important political and cultural moments in the southern states, endowing that landscape with a vividness that will be familiar to fans of the artist’s photography. Christenberry’s own photographs accompany these tales."

See more images from this book here.

Jack Pierson.

Jack Pierson. Photographs by Jack Pierson. Introduction by Jack Pierson. Text by Enrique Juncosa, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rachael Thomas, Richard D. Marshall. Charta/Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2008. 436 pp., 384 color and 21 black & white illustrations., 6¾x9½".

"This publication - at once a daybook, a survey (it accompanies the artist's first exhibition in Ireland) and an artist's book - collects eight previous publications on the American artist Jack Pierson, several of which are long out of print.

Pierson was among the first photographers to print pages with the imagery bleeding out of its usual white frame, and to deploy a bleached-out and overexposed style of photography that connotes a longing for a recent but already dimming past, littered with the props and players of yesterday's parties. By small increments, an emotional tone builds that is both warmly homoerotic and unabashedly wistful.

All of these books were designed by the artist and are here reproduced in their original size and in chronological order."

Lighter.

Lighter. Photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans. Text by Julie Ault, Daniel Birnbaum, Joachim Jaeger. Hatje Cantz, 2008. 400 pp., 210 color illustrations., 10x11¾".

"Since winning the Turner Prize in 2000 for his 1990s oeuvre of portraits and snapshots, German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has increasingly gravitated towards the abstract and material-specific properties of his medium.

Following Blushes, the Freischwimmer series and the monochromatic Silver series, his most recent abstract works - of which the creased and folded Lighter series is perhaps the most significant - treat the photograph, and especially photographic paper itself, no longer as a reproductive medium, but as a material object.

In Tillmans’ 'paper drop' photographs, the paper’s physical folds and curves are photographed to produce geometric, tactile compositions. Other works oscillate more elusively between photograph and object, always thriving in the interplay.

'For me, the abstract picture is already objective because it’s a concrete object and represents itself,' Tillmans observes; 'the paper on which the picture is printed is for me an object, there is no separating the picture from that which carries it. That’s why I like to show photographs sometimes framed and sometimes not, just taped to the wall.'

These most recent works are gathered for the first time in this book. Lighter also includes an extensive section of installation views - taken by Tillmans himself - that offers the reader a direct experience of the artist’s visual cosmos as presented in recent exhibitions, including his last retrospective, which was seen at various major venues in the United States."

The Grand Lady of the Lace.

The Grand Lady of the Lace. By Katy Horan. gouache on paper, 2009. Found via Julia Rothman's twitter.

Wonderful, layered piece in paper (gouache on paper) by this Texas native, Brooklyn-living artist.

See more of Katy Horan's work (including works on paper and works on wood) here, where you can also visit her shop or blog.

John Hughes 1950-2009.

John Hughes (image: APC)

"John Hughes, Jr. (February 18, 1950-August 6, 2009) was an American film director, producer and writer.

He made some of the most successful comedy films of the 1980s and 1990s.

[...]

His first directorial effort, Sixteen Candles, won almost unanimous praise when it was released in 1984, due in no small part to its more realistic depiction of middle-class high school life, which stood in stark contrast to the Porky's-inspired comedies being made at the time.

It was also the first in a string of efforts set in or around high school, including 'The Breakfast Club', 'Pretty in Pink', 'Weird Science' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'.

To avoid being pigeonholed as a maker of teen comedies, Hughes branched out in 1987, directing 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' starring Steve Martin and John Candy."

Still from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

"He also wrote screenplays using his pseudonym, Edmond Dantès (protagonist of Alexandre Dumas, père's novel The Count of Monte Cristo).

In 1994, Hughes retired from the public eye and moved to Wisconsin, rarely granting or giving interviews or photographs to the media save a select few interviews in 1999 to promote the soundtrack album to Reach the Rock, an independent film he wrote. The album was compiled by Hughes' son, John Hughes III, and released on his son's Chicago-based record label, Hefty Records. He also recorded an audio commentary for the 1999 DVD release of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A photograph of him visiting his son on the set of his son's film in 2001 was the last photo taken of him in public."


John Hughes has had a an enormous impact on the language of film and been a source of inspiration to many film makers, perhaps most notably the director Wes Anderson.

Hughes died in Manhattan on August 6th 2009 apparently from a heart attack.

Read more from the Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times.

Library of Dust.

Library of Dust. Photographs by David Maisel. Essays by Geoff Manaugh, Terry Toedtemeier and Michael Roth. Chronicle Books, 2008. 108 pp., illustrated throughout, 13,25x17".

"Esteemed photographer David Maisel has created a somber and beautiful series of images depicting canisters containing the cremated remains of the unclaimed dead from an Oregon psychiatric hospital.

Dating back as far as the nineteenth century, these canisters have undergone chemical reactions, causing extravagant blooms of brilliant white, green, and blue corrosion, revealing unexpected beauty in the most unlikely of places.

This stately volume is both a quietly astonishing body of fine art from a preeminent contemporary photographer, and an exceptionally poignant monument to the unknown deceased."


This is a little bit gruesome and I find the premises a little bit questionable as far as the disrespect shown to the deceased and their families.

Bearing this in mind I do however find the result absolutely breath-taking, and a poignant record of weathering and the changing of times.

Collective Memory.

Collective Memory. Photographs by Doug Keyes. Decode Books, Seattle, 2008. 64 pp., 31 color illustrations., 8x11".

"Doug Keyes's photographs investigate the ways that knowledge stacks upon itself over time, leaving an impression or 'collective memory.'

In his first monograph, Collective Memory, Keyes’s luminous color images of books literally reveal - and sometimes conceal - this stacking by capturing through multiple exposure the experience of reading the book. The resulting single image is a condensed document of the experience, the ideas contained within, and the physical identity of the book itself.

The books Keyes chooses to photograph - from art books and works of fiction, to poetry books and books on scientific theory - hold personal meaning or remembrance for him and become sites to revisit.

Keyes's photographs in fact make visible the pleasure of leafing through a text and the memory of that experience."


I think this is an absolutely spectacular idea, but I'm not so sure about the execution. However certainly an idea and process to think about in your own work though.

Transfigurations.

Transfigurations. Photographs by Michael Lundgren. Radius Books, 2008. 64 pp., 40 duotone illustrations., 14x11".

"Historically, landscape photography was used as a means of documenting geographic and scientific exploration. Later it transitioned into a way to record nature and the spectacle of human progress.

Rarely has it been employed more abstractly to convey an atavistic or ecstatic experience as it is in the new work of Michael Lundgren.

This volume collects the Phoenix-based photographer's images of the Sonoran desert, which he has been shooting since 2003.

Using the desert's constant flux to his advantage, Lundgren records the shifting effects of light and atmosphere to create stunning black-and-white images. These photographs express a lust for the primitive, and they reinvigorate the realm of landscape photography with notions of the sublime.

Lundgren elaborates in his statement, 'The landscape is only discernible because of the presence of what is fundamentally absent. Myth and metaphor remain unfixed, open.'

This volume includes a text by the acclaimed critic, historian and best-selling author, Rebecca Solnit, as well as an afterword by the noted scholar and professor William Jenkins, who curated the influential 1975 New Topographics exhibition."

Nina Simone: I want a little sugar in my bowl.

I want a little sugar in my bowl. With Nina Simone. (Link to clip via Elsa Billgren's blog).

"Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known by her stage name Nina Simone /ˈniːnə sɨˈmoʊn/ (February 21, 1933 - April 21, 2003), was a Grammy Award-nominated American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger and civil rights activist.

Although she disliked being categorized, Simone is generally classified as a jazz musician. Simone originally aspired to become a classical pianist, but her work covers an eclectic variety of musical styles besides her classical basis, such as jazz, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop music.

Her vocal style is characterized by intense passion, a loose vibrato, and a slightly androgynous timbre, in part due to her unusually low vocal range which veered between the alto and tenor ranges (occasionally even reaching baritone lows).

Also known as The High Priestess of Soul, she paid great attention to the musical expression of emotions. Within one album or concert she could fluctuate between exuberant happiness and tragic melancholy. These fluctuations also characterized her own personality and personal life, worsened by bipolar disorder with which she was diagnosed during the mid-1960s, but was kept secret until 2004 after her death.


Simone recorded over 40 live and studio albums, the greatest body of her work being released between 1958 (when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue) and 1974.

Songs she is best known for include "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "I Put a Spell on You", "Four Women", "I Loves You Porgy", "Feeling Good", "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Sinnerman", "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" and "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl".

Her music and message made a strong and lasting impact on culture, illustrated by the numerous contemporary artists who cite her as an important influence (among them Mary J. Blige, Elkie Brooks, Alicia Keys, Jeff Buckley, John Legend, Lauryn Hill and Peter Gabriel)."

flight patterns

flight patterns by Charlie McCarthy.

"Michigan-based filmmaker Charlie McCarthy shot 156 photographs of insects flying around a street light, each at a four second exposure.

He then put them together at 12 frames per second to make this delightful little film..."


I think this is a wonderfully well-executed film perfectly edited and scored. Really such an amazing visual experience! Found via Creative Review.

The Whimsical Works of David Weidman.

The Whimsical Works of David Weidman. By David Weidman. Ginko Press, 2009. 216pp., numerous colour illustrations, 11.5x8". Images from youworkforthem - found via grain edit.

"David Weidman’s name may not be familiar, but his work certainly is. Weidman began his career as an animator in 1950s Los Angeles, painting backgrounds for Hannah Barbara and setting the standard for the look of cartoons of that era. However, like a true entrepreneur he soon began to work for himself, and went on to establish a style that is today instantly recognizable and iconic.

A printmaker, ceramicist, font designer, painter, cartoonist, and silk screener, Weidman never stopped experimenting as an artist. Today at age 87 Weidman’s staggering body of work is just as modern and visually stunning as it was forty years ago. His graphic sensibility and expert use of saturated color palettes evoke the vintage modern look while remaining completely relevant to contemporary designers.

The Whimsical Work of David Weidman is a long overdue career retrospective of a true originator, who created the look of an era."

Man Ray & L. Fritz Gruber: Years of a Friendship 1956 - 1976.

Years of a Friendship 1956 - 1976. By Man Ray & L. Fritz Gruber, introduction by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, text by Herbert Molderings, Claudia Schubert. Steidl & Partners, 2008. 216 pp., 260 color illustrations., 8x12".

"One was a famous artist and a pioneering photographer, the other an ardent collector of photography, a curator and author - known to his many friends as “Mr. Photokina” for his founding and curatorship of the legendary exhibitions at the Photokina photography fair in Cologne.

Man Ray (1890-1976) and L. Fritz Gruber (1908-2005) nurtured a professional and personal friendship for more than 20 years, enjoying that particular closeness that can sometimes arise between artist and connoisseur. Gruber was closely involved in projects such as Man Ray’s solo exhibition at Photokina and the book Man Ray Portraits, one of many now-collectable photography books Gruber edited.

With an unsurpassed scholarly knowledge of Man Ray’s work, over the course of several decades Gruber and his wife Renate put together the collection that is the basis of this book. (The collection itself now resides in Cologne’s Ludwig Museum.)

In addition to Man Ray’s photographs, sculptural work and objects, the book includes extensive correspondence between Man Ray and Gruber and several essays on their association.

Against this broadly drawn backdrop, amoving personal picture emerges of the Grubers’diligent commitment to the work of this American artist. This volume provides many new insights on Man Ray, particularly within the final creative phase of his life."

Irgendwo.

Irgendwo. Photographs by Michael Schmidt. Interview with Dietmar Elger. Snoeck, Ghent, 2006. 140 pp., 67 full-page duotone illustrations, 11½x9¾".

"Irgendwo - 'Somewhere' - a beautifully produced new book, looks at present-day Germany in the intriguing shades of grey that are the artist's trademark.

'I consider my brand of black and white photography to be color photography,' says Schmidt in the excellent interview (in English and German) in the book. 'Actually, I consider grey to be a color...the color of differentiation, as weird as that many sound.'

The book also explores the notion of a 'series' of photographs, and poses important questions about how images can stand alone, and how they change their meaning in the context of the order in which they are displayed or published."