The Complex of All of These.

Video of the making of The Complex of All of These by Abigail Uhteg. Found via Coccinellidae's twitter.

The video comprises a collection of about 3000 photographs. 35 books were handmade over a period of two months at the Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY.


About the book:

"In a poetic language the author contemplates the world around her.

Images and words become parallel languages, where the distinction between ground and sky, past and present collapses.

One conceit after another feels its way over the tiny words before sinking deep into the dark of the etching ink to linger, trembling."

Frank O´Hara reads 'Having a coke with you'

Frank O´Hara reads his poem 'Having a coke with you' in his New York flat, shortly before his death in 1966. Found via litherland's twitter.

"Frank O´Hara reading his poem 'Having a coke with you' in his flat in New York in 1966, shortly before his accidental death.

Taken from - 'USA: Poetry: Frank O'Hara' produced and directed by Richard Moore, for KQED and WNET. Originally aired on September 1, 1966."

More videos can be viewed here.


"Francis Russell O'Hara (March 27, 1926 - July 25, 1966) was an American poet who, along with John Ashbery, James Schuyler, Barbara Guest and Kenneth Koch, was a key member of the New York School of poetry.

[...]

O'Hara's poetry is generally autobiographical, much of it based on observations on what is happening to him in the moment.

Donald Allen says in his introduction to The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, 'That Frank O’Hara tended to think of his poems as a record of his life is apparent in much of his work'.

O'Hara discusses this aspect of his poetry in a statement for Donald Allen's New American Poetry: 'What is happening to me, allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems. I don’t think my experiences are clarified or made beautiful for myself or anyone else, they are just there in whatever form I can find them'. He goes on to say, 'My formal 'stance' is found at the crossroads where what I know and can't get meets what is left of that I know and can bear without hatred'. He then says, 'It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time'.

[...]

O'Hara was active in the art world, working as a reviewer for Art News, and in 1960 was Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art.

He was also friends with the artists Willem de Kooning, Norman Bluhm, Larry Rivers and Joan Mitchell.

He died following an accident on Fire Island in which he was struck and injured by a man speeding in a beach vehicle during the early morning hours of July 24, 1966. He died the next day of a ruptured liver at the age of 40 and was buried in the Green River Cemetery on Long Island."

-- read further here.

Lee Friedlander: Self-Portrait.

Self-Portrait. Photographs by Lee Friedlander. Haywire Press, New York, 1970. Unpaged. Small quarto. Black-and-white reproductions printed by Meriden Gravure. First edition currently auctioned at photo-eye. (Top image: cover of re-print, bottom: cover of first edition).

"Lee Friedlander's surreal sensibility is on full display in this set of photographs, originally published in 1970.

Here Friedlander focuses on how his physical presence impacts his photographs.

Known for capturing subjects outside of himself - nudes, landscapes - Friedlander writes: 'At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings'.

Readers can witness this progression through the images here as Friedlander appears in shadow, reflected in windows and mirrors, and, only occasionally, fully visible through his own camera.

In some photos he visibly struggles with the notion of self-portraiture, desultorily shooting himself in household mirrors and other reflective surfaces. Soon, though, he begins to toy with the pictures, almost teasingly inserting his shadow into them to amusing and provocative effect - elongated and trailing a group of women seen only from the knees down; cast and bent over a chair as if seated in it; mirroring the silhouette of someone walking down the street ahead of him; or falling on the desert ground, a large bush standing in for hair.

These uncanny self-portraits evoke a surprisingly full landscape of the artist's life and mind."


The book details above are of the first edition. The re-print is published by Distributed Art Publishers, has a dimension of 10.1 x 9.4 x 0.4" and comprises 96 pages. It has 50 duotone images, and includes an afterword about the work written by John Szarkowski.

Optics. Compression. Propaganda..

Optics. Compression. Propaganda.. By Sean Snyder, edited by Silvia Sgualdini. Distributed Art Publishers, 2008. 96 pp., 88 color illustrations., 9x11".

"The words 'optics', 'compression' and 'propaganda' form the subtext for this monograph by Sean Snyder, who lives between Kiev and Berlin.

Using archival and media resources, as well historical cinema, photography and art references, Snyder is engaged in ongoing experiments concerning the malleability of images and the mechanics of their production."


Read Sean Snyder's piece on 'Optics. Compression. Propaganda.' in Art & Research journal.

Transitions: The Dresden Project.

Transitions. The Dresden Project. Photographs by Fredrik Marsh. Essays by Andreas Krase, Rod Slemmons and Holger Starke. Technische Sammlungen Dresden, Dresden, 2009. 104 pp., 72 color and black & white illustrations, 12x9".

"American photographer Fredrik Marsh’s images tell the story of the great societal upheaval at the end of the twentieth century from an unusual perspective. The project deals in general with the passing of time and with change.

Marsh came to Dresden for the first time in 2002 and the idea for the 'Transitions: The Dresden Project', which would not be finally completed until 2006, came to the photographer in a process that can only be described as possessing its own momentum.

Marsh had started to focus on German history in a downright unconventional manner. He developed quite a distinct and unusual interest in the remnants of recent, specifically East German history as well as in the changes wrought by the rebuilding and the renewal of Dresden following the peaceful revolution of 1989.

He concentrated on the overlapping of different historical layers which he discovered in empty factory buildings, barracks and deserted old historic Dresden residences. He proceeded like an archaeologist who enters a new territory and secures evidence of former life without influencing it in any way.

With his pictures, Fredrik Marsh pays reverence to the important, but also tragic past of this city.

Marsh received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Transitions: The Dresden Project."


Deluxe Limited Edition:

"The Deluxe Limited Edition of 'Transitions: The Dresden Project' comes with a choice of one of four archival pigment prints and a signed book.

All prints made by the artist are from scans of his original negatives.

Three options are 9 x 11 inches in image size, printed on an 11 x 14 sheet of 300 gsm, 100% cotton & acid-free paper. Prints are mounted on 2-ply archival board and matted in a 14 x 17 inch 4-ply archival window matte. The fourth option measure 5 1/2 x 14 inches in image size, printed on a 8 x 17 inch sheet of 300 gsm, 100% cotton & acid-free paper. Prints are mounted on 2-ply archival board and matted in a 12 x 20 inch 4-ply archival window matte.

The prints are numbered, signed, and dated on verso. This edition is limited to 15 copies per image - 60 in total."

Snowbound.

Snowbound. Photographs by Lisa M. Robinson. Text by Mark Strand. Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2007. 112 pp., 50 color illustrations, 11¾x9¾".

"Five winters long, the young American photographer Lisa M. Robinson took pictures in the snow. Snowbound shows landscapes in which everyday objects - alienated and sunken in snow - civilize the natural surroundings.

Traces of human existence set accents in the white landscape, delimiting it and often popping up in an amusing or incongruous way. A lonely hammock, a trampoline or a swimming pool are both echoes of the summer past and of personal memories. But Lisa M. Robinson is not interested in showing the obvious; instead, the photographer makes use of the many aggregate states of water - ice, snow, fog, water - as metaphors for life and transience."


About the Limited Edition:

"Limited to 75 signed and numbered copies. A custom white full cloth binding is the ground for an original tipped in photograph of 'Wish.' This limited edition book cover beautifully complements that of the trade edition.

The book is Presented in a hand-made white clamshell box with a blue ultrasuede interior, and is accompanied by an original signed 8 x 10 c-print by the artist."


Only on a gloriously sunny day like today could I post a book like this!


UPDATE: Also available through Klompching Gallery as they kindly told me, where you can also read more about Lisa M. Robinson as well as view more of her work.

Other Nature.

Other Nature. Photography by Ron Jude. The Ice Plant, 2008. 80 pp., 39 color illustrations., 10½x7¾". Signed copies available from photo-eye.

"In his previous book, Alpine Star, photographer and publisher Ron Jude appropriated and recast a collection of his hometown newspaper photographs as a cryptically humorous meditation on the grey area between personal history and collective memory. Jude’s latest series of photographs, Other Nature, adds a more intimate, diaristic strain to this line of inquiry.

In this handsome volume, two separate sets of his own 4 x 5 color pictures (made between 2001 and 2008) combine to create a subtle and uncanny instance of what Jude has called the 'slippery threshold of narrative' in still images.

Drawing on the concerns of the New Topographics photographers, Jude’s accounts of anonymous motel rooms and the stranger regions of the American landscape could, on first glance, be mistaken for an ecological critique. But as the exterior and interior details of these environments (floral patterns, wood grain, sunlight) begin to merge, interrupt and inform each other, the book shifts into a more abstract, subjective register, provoking reflections on photography, the visible world and the things hovering just outside our physical perception."

Liquid Chain Into the Vapor Wall.

Liquid Chain Into the Vapor Wall. The Fall. By FOS (alias Thomas Poulsen); Pernille Albrethsen, ed.; Text by Cecilie Ostergaard Hogsboro, Claus Heinberg, Claus Emmeche, Jason Dodge. Distributed Art Publishers, 2008. 207 pp., 234 color, 13 duotone and 60 black & white illustrations., 6¾x9¾".

"This artist's book is based on the concept of 'social design' developed by the artist FOS (alias Thomas Poulsen) since 1999.

It is an environmental tool that can be used to examine the character and potential of the physical space of contemporary exhibitions and more permanent redesigns of public space."


For more information read here about the exhibition of the same name.

Detour - Moleskine art project

Neasden Control Centre notebook from the Detour project of Moleskines. Found via Michael Nobbs' twitter.

"Detour is a Moleskine project dedicated to culture and creativity worldwide that features internationally recognized artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, illustrators, and writers.

Detour is a small piece of the Moleskine journey, where interlacing stories merge. The travelling group show Detour, curated by Raffaella Guidobono, invites authors to compile and illustrate Moleskine notebooks with experienced knowledge insider tips for adventure hungry nomads. All of them deliver an intimate insight into the artists' creative process.

Amongst the notebooks some works contain extensive stories; others are turned into pieces of contemporary art and design.

Detour events have already taken place in London (2006), New York (2007), Paris (Spring 2008), Berlin (Fall 2008), Istanbul (Spring 2009), Tokyo (Fall 2009).

Detour supports lettera27, a non-profit Foundation."


"Neasden Control Centre is an innovative graphic design collective based in London, UK.

[...]

The group's edgy, sometimes child-like illustration has brought them to the attention of graphic design enthusiasts across the world and in 2003 they were the subject of a book produced by the prestigious publisher Die Gestalten Verlag."


The Detour project comprises of a range of exciting and prestigious artists. To view the artist videos and learn more about them go to Detour's video gallery or to the moleskine youtube channel.

Visual installation

Visual installation by Bjørnar Pedersen and Andreas Knag-Danielsen.

"Visual instalations for the EKKO festival in Bergen 2009 by Central Saint Martin graphic design student Bjørnar Pedersen in collaboration with Andreas Knag-Danielsen.

Music: Ekko mixtape by The Work."


This video of work by Bjørnar Pedersen and Andreas Knag-Danielsen I found via the excellent FILE magazine.

Even though I don't mind the music as such I found it pretty interesting how meditative the installation felt if you switched off the sound.

Almost like an entirely different piece, you could appreciated the graphic shapes and the colour quality that much more.

It definitely added another dimension to it for me. Try!


For more of Bjørnar Pedersen's excellent work go here.

Grasslands/Separating Species.

Grasslands/Separating Species. Photographs by Michael P. Berman, Krista Elrick, Dana Fritz, David Taylor and Jo Whaley. Radius Books, 2009. 48 pp., 24 duotone and four-color illustrations, 9x12½".

"This catalog documents a two-part exhibition that has sprung from the work of Michael Berman, a current Guggenheim Fellow, who is both esteemed in the contemporary art world and a longtime activist with several environmental organizations.

Berman’s current series of photographs, titled 'Grasslands', is about the endangered Chihuahuan Desert grasslands in New Mexico, Texas and the northern border of Mexico, where he has wandered into the desert without a compass to, in his words, 'live deliberately'.

He believes that how you see the land comes down to what you value. 'I believe art has a greater potential for meaning when it serves some purpose. People have started to recognize these lands as significant and this is something art can help along. If anything, my work is to generate small symbols that reveal the greater complexity of things'.

Inspired by his 'Grasslands' series, guest curator Mary Anne Redding has assembled a concurrent exhibition, 'Separating Species', that includes a remarkable group of artists, all of whom delve into land in diverse ways that illuminate our relationship to our fragile ecosystems, highlighting our interconnectedness with the environment and non-human species.

Krista Elrick examines North American birds; Dana Fritz looks at plants and animals in engineered indoor landscape environments; Jo Whaley creates theatrical still life images of insects and humans; and David Taylor’s images of border monuments along the US/Mexico border explore the effect of border control on both humans and animals."

Even in the End.

Even in the End. Photographs by Peter Sutherland. Gottlund Verlag, 2009. 24 pp., black & white illustrations throughout, 6x9".

"Peter Sutherland and Gottlund Verlag are excited to announce a new collaboration in print - Even in the End.

A slim edition of black and white images printed by hand from photo engraved copperplates.

The rugged nature of the book matches the wild and epic scale of the images.

We have allowed in the printing and binding for any inconsistencies to present themselves as evidence of the process."

Transitional States.

Transitional States. Parcours Muséologique Revisité. Photography by Robert Polidori. Steidl, 2008. 240 pp., 160 color illustrations., 13x13".

"In 'Transitional States' Robert Polidori delivers a sublime photographic tract on architectural revisionism by charting the decades-long conservation project at Versailles.

One of the world’s largest palaces, and a symbol of absolute monarchy in France, Versailles is a supremely apropos building through which to address matters of revisionism, having been subjected to four building campaigns (between 1664 and 1697) by Louis XIV alone, and several modifications since.

So what does restoring a room really entail? Does restoration intend the precise recreation of what once was? And if so, how much 'creativity' goes into determining a room’s original condition?

The curatorial decisions steering this project inevitably betray political and aesthetic affiliations that have morphed over the course of the restoration, and Polidori has been in attendance to record them. Photographed over a period of 25 years, the ever-evolving phases of Versaille’s grandeur are here laid bare for the reader to decode and admire."


The photographs in this book are just absolutely sensational. A beautiful, interesting piece of work.

Summer Nights, Walking.

Summer Nights, Walking. Photographs by Robert Adams. Aperture/Yale University Art Galler, New York, 2009. 84 pp., 70 tritone illustrations, 8¾x8½".

"In this exquisitely produced book, the influential American photographer Robert Adams revisits the classic collection of nocturnal landscapes that he began making in the mid-1970s near his former home in Longmont, Colorado.

Originally published by Aperture in 1985 as Summer Nights, this new edition has been carefully reedited and resequenced by the photographer, who has added 39 previously unpublished images.

Illuminated by moonlight and streetlamp, the houses, roads, sidewalks and fields in Summer Nights,Walking retain the wonder and stillness of the original edition, while adopting the artist’s intention of a dreamy fluidity, befitting his nighttime perambulations.

The extraordinary care taken with the new reproductions also registers Adams’ attention to the subtleties of the night, and conveys his appeal to look again at places we might have dismissed as uninteresting. Adams observes,'What attracted me to the subjects at a new hour was the discovery then of a neglected peace.' "

American Power.

American Power. Photographs and text by Mitch Epstein. Steidl Photography International, 2009. 144 pp., 64 color illustrations, 11½x10½".

"Mitch Epstein’s latest project tackles one of the most loaded issues on the nation’s agenda: what and who powers America?

Between 2003 and 2008, prompted by the evacuation of an environmentally contaminated Ohio town, Epstein traveled the United States to document the country’s energy 'hot spots', where fossil fuel, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind and solar power are produced, encountering further contaminations, Homeland Security obstacles, corporate invincibility and the occasional token of hope.

In a post-Katrina and post-Patriot Act America, the angle of engagement permitted Epstein often varied, so that many of the power plants and refineries were shot from an enforced distance ('If you were Muslim, you'd be cuffed and taken in for questioning', he quotes an F.B.I. agent in West Virginia telling him).

Alongside these classic depictions of looming, obdurate power, Epstein includes more idiomatic images - a woman wading in the water above Niagara Falls, father and son motorcross bikers, a tree cluttered with debris - which bring the issues back down to human scale.

Epstein tells in an accompanying essay how these experiences deepened his political convictions, and led him to think harder about the artist’s role in a country teetering between collapse and transformation.

Here is his portrait of early twenty-first-century America, as it clings to past comforts and gropes for a more sensible and sustainable future."

Thoughts on Landscape.

Thoughts on Landscape. Collected Writings and Interviews. By Frank Gohlke. Hol Art Books, 2009. 208 pp., 6x9".

"Frank Gohlke has been a leading figure in American landscape photography for thirty years.

Photographing grain silos in Minnesota, the aftermaths of a tornado in Texas and the Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington, and a river’s quiet course in Massachusetts, his is a career of deep, unbroken contemplation of the land, and of our livelihood and survival within it.

And for nearly as long as Gohlke has been photographing the landscape, he has also been writing about it.


In the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson's seminal book 'The Mind’s Eye' and Robert Adams's 'Beauty in Photography' Gohlke’s writings span from the philosophical to the personal.

Throughout is his abiding sense of curiosity, an affection for and loyalty to his subject, and an uncanny ability to convey the richness of his experience to readers.

In this collected volume, Gohlke’s talent for photographing the landscape proves rivaled only by his talent for writing about it."