Visible Library.

Visible Library. Photographs by Sam Falls. Lay Flat, 2011. 36 pp., illustrated throughout, 9,5x7,75". Edition of 750 (special edition of 20, sold out). Images from here.

Read more about artist Sam Falls by going here (great in-depth interview).

I've previously featured Lay Flat 02: Meta and Dune by the wonderful publisher Lay Flat.


Book description:

"In a departure from the colorful still life photographs he is known for, artist Sam Falls brings together a series of black and white images for the first time in his limited-edition artist book 'Visible Library'.

With a large format camera and a few boxes of expired film, Falls spent a day making these beautiful and haunting pictures in the stacks above the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Like 'walking alone in the woods', as he refers to it, Falls created what can easily be considered his most intimate body of work, a personal meditation on art, history, preservation and the photographic medium."

History's Shadow.

History's Shadow. Photographs by David Maisel. Nazraeli Press, 2011. 72 pp., illustrated throughout, 12x16". Images from here.

I have previously featured the wonderful Library of Dust by David Maisel.

Book description:

"David Maisel’s work has always been concerned with processes of memory, excavation, and transformation. These themes are given new form in his latest work, 'History’s Shadow'.

In this series, Maisel re-photographs x-rays from museum archives that depict artifacts from antiquity, scanning and digitally manipulating the selected source material.

X-rays have historically been used by art conservators for structural examination of art and artifacts much as physicians examine bones and internal organs; they reveal losses, replacements, construction methods, and internal trauma invisible to the naked eye. By transcribing both the inner and outer surfaces of their subjects simultaneously, they form spectral images of indeterminate space, depth, and scale.

The resulting photographs seem like transmissions from the distant past, both spanning and collapsing time. They express – through feeling and art, as well as science and reason – the shape-shifting nature of time itself, and the continuous presence of the past contained within us.

The book contains an original short story by Jonathan Lethem that was inspired by Maisel’s images."

Laboratory of Vision.

Laboratory of Vision. Photographs by Moholy-Nagy. Kokushokankokai, 2011. 308 pp., illustrated throughout, 20x27cm.

View inside the entire book here (it's pretty wonderful).

This book was published in conjunction with the exhibition Moholy-Nagy/In Motion at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (Japan), and with support of the Moholy-Nagy Foundation.


Book description:

"This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Moholy-Nagy/In Motion’ introducing works spanning the full oeuvre of Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), an artist who brought new vision to the art of the 20th century.

As a prominent member of the avant-garde art movements between the two World Wars, he developed an artistic ideal of creating works of light and motion. The pursuit of his career as a creative artist and art educator took Moholy-Nagy from his native Hungary to Vienna, then on to Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain and finally to the United States.

Working in painting, photography, sculpture, film, graphic design, stage design and publishing, Moholy-Nagy’s career addressed many of the new issues confronting art in the 20th century, such as the relationship between art and industrial technology and the new media of information and communications.

This exhibition marks Japan’s first full-scale retrospective of the art of Moholy-Nagy and spans the artist’s full career from its earliest years to its last in some 300 works and related materials and documents."

Yemen: Photographic Works.

Yemen: Photographic Works. Photographs by Josef Hoflehner. Most Press, 2006. 132 pp., illustrated throughout, 30,5x32,5cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"This gorgeous new monograph 'Yemen: Photographic Works', takes us on journey through the country of Yemen. The book features breathtaking photographs by renowned Austrian photographer Josef Hoflehner.

He has been intensely photographing in Yemen for the past year, this new publication highlights dramatic, peaceful and hauntingly beautiful black and white images of the desert country located on the Arabian peninsula.

Superbly printed in duotone - this First Edition is limited to 1000 casebound copies only. With text in English, German and Arabic, this is an absolutely must-have photography book."

Moscow Plastic Arts.

Moscow Plastic Arts. Photographs by Nick Muellner. Arcadia University Art Gallery, 2008. 48 pp., illustrated throughout, 5,75x8,25". Edition of 1250 copies. Images from here.

Book description:

"Hovering between formalist inquiry and blunt, physical documentation, 'Moscow Plastic Arts' draws on the transitional material, ideological, and social status of the rapidly commercializing post-soviet metropolis.

Printed in a rich but faded palette on manila tag stock, these photographs suggest and entwine two heroic models - Socialist Realism and High Sixties Modernism - that are both unavoidable and inevitably absent in the work.

Their frustrated evocations illuminate the tragicomical space between idealist belief and material truth."

Bookmarks: Infiltrating the Library System

Bookmarks IX: Infiltrating the Library System 2011-2012. By Sara Elgerot / Rare Autumn, 2011. Hand-signed and numbered. Edition of 100 (with 1 copy in the CFPR archive).

I'm very happy to be part of the Centre for Fine Print Research (the University of the West of England)'s project Bookmarks IX: Infiltrating the Library System 2011-2012.

The project - curated in the form of bookmarks by participating artists - was set up in 2004 to encourage interest and appreciation of bookart and artists' books, as well as libraries and other places housing, teaching and promoting bookart / artists' books.

Description (description of my bookmark here):

"The Bookmarks projects series aim is to encourage appreciation of work in the format of the artist's book. Participating artists each hand-produce an edition of 100 signed and numbered bookmarks to give away through distribution boxes at venues around the world. Each bookmark has the website address which brings visitors to the gallery of artworks online.

Over the last six years the Bookmarks series of free artwork distribution has visited 60 venues in Italy, The Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, France, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Cyprus, Croatia, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and the USA. Over 280 artists have contributed more than 28,000 bookmarks to the eight projects to date. Editioned bookmarks are collated into sets; one full set being sent to each of the contributing artists and the rest divided and sent in distribution boxes to participating galleries, bookstores and libraries around the world, for visitors to take."


UPDATE: More here (they're distributing online, so you can request to receive bookmark(s) from one or more participating artist(s)), as well as here.

The Heath.

The Heath. Photographs by Andy Sewell. Andy Sewell, 2011. 84 pp., illustrated throughout, 11,75x9,5".

Book description:

"Hampstead Heath was once part of the countryside surrounding London and is now a green fragment deep within the urban landscape. It is a place of ancient trees, tall grass and thickets dense enough to get lost in - if only briefly.

I go to the Heath to be somewhere that feels natural, yet I know this is no pathless wood. The Heath is as managed as any other part of London but managed to feel wild.

In a way this project is about perceptions of what is natural, but it’s also an attempt to explore what EO Wilson called the human condition of 'Biophilia', being drawn to somewhere that feels natural without knowing why.

Over the last five years I have spent many hours walking on the Heath. With this set of pictures I hope to convey something of what I was looking for and what I found."

Rockfalls and Ponds.

Rockfalls and Ponds. Photographs by Jem Southman. Introduction by César Alierta Izuel. Foreword by Sérgio Mah. La Fabrica, 2011. 65 pp., illustrated throughout, 30x24cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"British photographer Jem Southam (born 1950) patiently observes the topographical changes at a single location, revisiting a site over months or even years.

Sometimes the recorded modifications are driven by man, as seen in his The Pond at Upton Pyne series, which charts a village pond as it is transformed by successive periods of neglect.

At other times, the transformations seem less steered by humankind, but still suggest a delicate balance between nature and man.

Southam’s acute sensitivity to place is well represented by this handsomely bound monograph."

The sound of the impact and the ground vibrations during the collapse

The sound of the ground vibrations during the collapse of the World Trade Center. Source. Audification by sound artist Mark Bain. Found via bldgblog.

This recording from Columbia University's Geological survey lab, made audible by sound artist Mark Bain, of the sound of the ground vibrating during the impact and collapse of the Twin Towers on Sept 11, 2001 is remarkable.

It feels very profound to me in many ways, as a metaphor for perhaps something larger than ourselves, and of the force of destruction.


Mark Bain's description below. Also go to bldgblog where Geoff Manaugh has posted eloquently about this.

"This work involves a process of audification of the seismological data record, which occurred in the area of New York State, New Jersey, and New England during the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on September eleventh, 2001. The data streams were acquired from Columbia University's Geological survey lab, which run a network of earth monitoring stations in the area; with the closest being 34 km away from the epicenter of the event.

A process of data conversion and signal translation was used to make the normally inaudible seismic waveforms both audible and to play back in real-time as the event unfolded. No other processing or effects were added to the tracks.

The registration includes four events, two impacts and the two collapses along with the inbetween sounds of the drone of the earth. The heaviest impact of the collapse registered 2.4 on the Richter scale, a signal which traveled throughout the earth.

This work stands not as a memorial per se but as an action of affect, where the global terrain becomes a sounding board, a bell-like alarm denoting histories in the making."

Holes and Halos.

Holes and Halos. By Paul Schiek. TBW Books and the Stephen Wirtz Gallery, 2008. 24pp., illustrated throughout, newsprint, 10,5x14". Limited edition of 2000 copies.

'Holes and Halos' was produced in conjunction with an exhibition featuring work by Paul Schiek at the Thomas Erben Gallery.

It was originally part of the admission to the exhibition as a way of letting the viewer take a piece of the art work with them home.


Description of the 'Holes and Halos' series of work:

"Shot in b/w, the actual making of the images is not as important to Schiek as is their editing and sequencing, which often results in the placement of several images on one sheet.

Viewed together, their installation creates a blanketing effect that runs the spectrum of human emotions.

Recurrent motifs are anthropomorphized trees, physical interactions, water and, generally, the tension between light and dark.

In this language of opposites, Schiek finds the building blocks of a practical truth; a reminder that all life follows the same path: genesis of form then decay, and, in between, seemingly random alternation between isolation and community."

The New World's Old World.

The New World's Old World. Photographic Views of Ancient America. Edited by May Castleberry. With essays by May Castleberry, Georgia de Havenon, Kathleen Stewart Howe, Edward Ranney, and Martha A. Sandweiss. University Of New Mexico Press, 2003. 280 pp., illustrated throughout, 9,5x8,75".

Book description:

" 'The New World's Old World: Photographic Views of Ancient America' showcases the remarkable work of photographers who have captured the archaeological landscapes of ancient American cultures from the dawn of photography to the current day.

Through essays and descriptive entries on specific sites, the volume demonstrates how photography serves science by conserving structures and masterpieces of the Americas' past, in addition to being an independent artistic medium.

Included are works by nineteenth century explorers such as Désiré Charnay, William Henry Jackson, and Timothy O'Sullivan; scientific documentation by Alfred Maudslay; modernist visions by Josef Albers, Martín Chambi, Edward Weston, and Laura Gilpin; contemporary work by Marilyn Bridges, Javier Hinojosa, and Edward Ranney.

Their photographs and essays reflect a diversity of approaches. Most of the places shown here have been inhabited continuously since contact or rebuilt over ancient sites. Where some nineteenth-century photographers uncovered jumbles of stone smothered in vegetation, their successors contemplated sites altered by excavation, restoration, earthquakes and floods, vandalism, and the encroachment of settlements that obscure or obliterate ancient structures."

Another Water.

Another Water. Photographs by Roni Horn. Steidl, 2011. 112pp., illustrated throughout, 19,5x30cm.

I love water and am endlessly fascinated and inspired by the work of Roni Horn.


Book description:

“ 'What do you know about water? Only that it’s everywhere differently'. - Roni Horn

In 2000 Roni Horn published 'Another Water', an examination of the water of the River Thames through photographs and text. This new edition of 'Another Water' is to be published with the exact paper and binding that Horn had always envisioned for the book.

Water is a central theme for Horn: as a component of weather, a defining feature of her beloved Iceland, and as a beautiful, changeable element on which life depends.

'Another Water' is an ode to the substance of water but also on its impact on identity and imagination: in Horn’s words, 'You can’t talk about water without talking about oneself'. ”

Otis

Otis Redding: "Can't Turn You Loose". Source.

The excellent Otis Redding performing live in 1966.

New York 1969 - Tokyo...

New York 1969 - Tokyo... Photographs by Timm Rautert. Only Photography, 2011. 144pp., illustrated throughout, 10x13". Limited edition of 500 copies (first 35 copies special edition).

Book description:

"In the year marking Timm Rautert's seventieth birthday, we are very happy to have the opportunity to publish his series on New York and Japan, which he executed almost concurrently.

[...]

A representative selection of works from the two series is now being published for the first time in our series of bibliophilic photo books. Here, essentially two books unite to form one (the New York series begins at one end of the book, the Japan series at the other), creating a special kind of tension in the juxtaposition of the two portraits.

The New York images of 1969 seem to have come down to us from a century long past, for the city as we know it today is barely recognizable in them.

The large majority of the shots of Tokyo and Osaka, on the other hand - taken for the most part only one year later - show views still to be found there today.

The two series thus not only convey suspenseful impressions of two exceptional cities and countries but, in their juxtaposition, also convey a lasting conception of the history and development of two completely dissimilar cultures."


Read more about the special edition here.