La Jetée (Rest in Peace Chris Marker)

La Jetée (1962) by Chris Marker (complete short film, press cc for subtitles).

Avantgarde French filmmaker Chris Marker has passed away at the age of 91, Rest in Peace.

Read more here, here, here and here for example.

in this landscape

© Rare Autumn.

"in this landscape a pretty horse / translates into a man holding a gun". - Yusef Komunyakaa.

Position(s).

Position(s). By Antoine D'Agata. Avarie, 2012. 124 pp., illustrated throughout, 13,5x18cm, with fold-out poster 85,4x64cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"I want that! That what?
That. But what?
That.
To be there, to be the strongest, to be here, getting through wholly, warding off nothing, devouring all, about all eating, before going back to the absolute void.

- Antonin Artaud."

Collected Works/Gesammelte Werke Band 20.

Collected Works/Gesammelte Werke. Volume 20/Band 20, Books And Graphics (Part 1) from 1947 until 1971 / Bücher Und Grafik (1. Teil) aus den Jahren 1947 bis 1971. By Dieter Rot. Edition Hansjörg Mayer, 1972. 232pp., illustrated throughout, 17,1x23,2cm. In English and German.

I don't own this book / I need to own this book (library books envy).


Book description:

This is no 20 in the 26 volume strong 'Gesammelte Werke' series, an attempt by publisher Hansjörg Mayer in the 1970s to republish a comprehensive body of Roth's bookworks.

"Dieter Roth (April 21, 1930 - June 5, 1998) was an Icelandic artist of German-Swiss heritage best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot.

The dark undertone and furious, obsessive energy of his work ultimately separated him from many of the more lighthearted Fluxus artists. Perhaps despite himself, he was a fluent draftsman and expert printmaker, and his drawings and prints contained his wild energy within peculiarly virtuosic forms."


Quote from here.

A Room of One’s Own/One Thousand Libraries.

A Room of One’s Own/One Thousand Libraries. By Kajsa Dahlberg. Kajsa Dahlberg, 2006. 128pp., 11,4x17,2cm. Limited edition of 1000 copies.

I saw The Moderna Exhibition at Moderna Museet Stockholm in 2010 where the loose pages of this book was exhibited, and I must say I was a bit ambivalent to the work at the time.

I recently came across the bound artist book, which gave me a chance to think about the work again. I'm still ambivalent, but I'm interested in my own reactions (I always have a really hard time being ok with people writing in or earmarking books, especially library books) and I do very much respect the artist's underlying thought-process behind the work.


Book description:

" 'A Room of One’s Own/One Thousand Libraries' [or 'Ett eget rum/Tusen bibliotek'] is the title of Kajsa Dahlberg’s work, a variation on Virginia Woolf’s feminist classic from 1929, translated into Swedish by Jane Lundblad in 1958.

While working on this piece, Dahlberg borrowed and leafed through every copy of the book that was available in Swedish libraries, studying and copying the comments and under-linings that readers had made in these public copies.

The result is a new version, with manually transcribed reader comments from nearly fifty years of Swedish history.

In this exhibition, Dahlberg presents the 121 loose original sheets, which she has had printed and bound as an artist’s book in 1,000 copies.

Many of these are now in Swedish libraries. Thus, the work is both an intervention in the library structure and classification system, and a processing of reader interventions in a particular book.

The relationship between private and public property is central to this work. It also constitutes an analogy to Woolf’s call for female representation in the history of literature. Further complexity is added by the fact that Dahlberg puts her signature on Woolf’s text and complements it with the traces of the readings of those who have borrowed the book.

Thus, she draws attention to the importance of reading, that reception and interpretation are integral to an authorship.

'A Room of One’s Own/One Thousand Libraries' inscribes itself in the tradition that explores the theme of the potential of the self to attain some form of freedom, both in relation to the narratives of others and to economic systems."

Street Smart.

Street Smart. By Joakim Ojanen. Joakim Ojanen, 2009. 32pp., illustrated throughout, 29,7x21cm. Limited edition of 150 copies. Signed and numbered. Limited edition of 40 copies comes with a print.

There is something kind of lovely about these illustrated "city scenes" by Swedish-based artist Joakim Ojanen.

Book description:

"32 pages with 18 nice b/w drawings limited edition of 150 numbered zines."

Desiderata.

Desiderata. By Andreas Trogisch. Peperoni Books, 2011. 36 pp., illustrated throughout, 24x30cm. Edition of 100 copies, signed and numbered. Images from here.

Book description:

"The four so far published photo folders by Andreas Trogisch fascinated and enchanted us. Now the both last folders 'Asphalt' and 'Desiderata' complete the cycle. They are published in an edition of 100 numbered and signed copies.

The sixth and final folder is called 'Desiderata' and contains 28 b&w photographs from the photographer’s extensive work.

The magical poetical aura of these images oscillates between pausing and going on, longing and home sickness and wanderlust. The folder’s title may help a bit to slightly get closer to its mystery. Wishing! Having the desire to be here and away, wishing forwards and backwards, in the end even a fulfilled life.

That is perhaps the reason why one can view Andreas Trogisch’ images best with eyes closed.

Simultaneously to 'Desiderata' the fifth photo folder 'Asphalt' is published. DESIDERATA is also the name of the cassette with all six folders that will soon be published in an edition of only 20 copies."


I have previously also featured 'Asphalt' by Andreas Trogisch.

In the Car With R.

In the Car With R. Photographs by Rafal Milach, writings by Huldar Breiðfjörð. Czytelnia Sztuki, 2011. 160 pp., illustrated throughout, 17x21,5cm + poster 64x48cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"This beautiful composition of Rafal Milach's photographs and Huldar Breiðfjörð's text is the summary of both artists’ journey by Iceland.

Rafał Milach describes the book - This story is a personal road diary I have done together with Icelandic writer Huldar Breiðfjörð. We took highway #1 the only road surrounding Iceland and drove 1450km within 10 days. We didn’t care about either the volcanic eruption that took place few weeks earlier or the economical crisis that made Iceland bankrupt. It was a trip of a local with outsider and we both tried to learn of this place on our own. And we both failed coming back with more questions than answers.

'In the Car with R' was already selected as the winner of the New York Photo Awards 2011 Jury’s Choice Prize, for best overall picture or series. A dummy of the book was also given a Photography Book Now 2011 for the best documentary publication."

Zero Mostel Reads a Book.

Zero Mostel Reads a Book. By Robert Frank. Book design by Robert Frank and Gerhard Steidl. STEIDL Robert Frank, 2008. 40 pp., illustrated throughout, 13,7x20,2cm. Images from here.

I came across this book purely by chance and I really love it. Steidl's whole Robert Frank Project is a pretty wonderful thing.


Book description:

"When Robert Frank had completed his first two films, he accepted a commission for a photo-book from the New York Times, which became 'Zero Mostel Reads a Book'.

In it Frank takes the comic actor Zero Mostel (1915–1977) for his subject, and depicts him in cartoonish dimensions - bemused, baffled and apoplectic, as he makes his way through an unidentified hardback volume, seated at a table or on a sofa in a large lounge area.

Originally published "for the fun of it" in 1963 and dedicated to the American bookseller, the book was intended as a present for customers yet it never reached the book market. It has been a collector’s item since.

'Zero Mostel Reads a Book' references a series of theatrical and playful vignettes in which Mostel’s most famous roles - Tevye in 'Fiddler on the Roof', Pseudolus in 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum', and Max Bialystock in 'The Producers' - are clearly signaled.

It is a delightful moment of slapstick in Frank’s oeuvre, and directly reflects his emphasis on the moving image at the time."

Supercell.

Supercell. By Kevin Erskine. Hatje Cantz, 2011. 192 pp., illustrated throughout, 38,8x28,8cm. Images from here.

Book description:

"Fascinating and breathtaking large-format photographs of severe weather

At the age of twelve, Kevin Erskine (*1956 in Sharpsburg, Illinois) witnessed his first big storm: a category 4 tornado with wind speeds of over 207 miles per hour raged through the center of his hometown of Hoskins, Nebraska.

Fascinated and inspired by this immense force of nature, Erskine began taking his first photographs with his father’s camera. His passion for photography and respect for nature still motivate him to capture supercells with his large-format camera.

The images depict enormous cloud masses in continually different formations - be it before a thunderstorm, during a tornado, shined on by the red evening sun, or forebodingly dark purple or black by night.

Erskine masterfully demonstrates the ambivalence between the terrifying force of nature and its stunning beauty."

The Sun Shines In.

The Sun Shines In. By Aki Tanaka. Tosei-Sha, 2007. 48 pp., illustrated throughout, 15,5x23cm. Images from here.

This book might be starting off from the most wonderful of premises (or I'm intoxicated by the summer that's just started in earnest)...

I have previously also featured Sunshine Pulse and Sunshine Volition by Aki Tanaka.


Book description:

"In this work, Tanaka Aki took pictures of flowers, but not with the interest of the botanist or the weekend hobbyist.

Instead, she wanted to use flowers as a medium through which to capture sunlight.

The result is a work which is indeed brightly colored, but where the light seems to be leaking out of the images, as if the film had been literally bombarded with visual information and was unable to record it all. But the blurry quality of these images is not to the detriment of the work.

The photographs in this book could be viewed almost as abstract paintings, where the pattern and texture of the color that has been captured might be more important than the real object that they represent."