Saturday, April 11th, 2009
Two weeks ago was the Palm Springs Photo Festival. I loved it. I was a panelist (hosted by Michelle Dunn-Marsh of Chronicle Books and formerly of Aperture), a portfolio reviewer, and a happy camper. The reason for my happiness? Rocks and scrubby bushes, 70+ temperatures, straight-up searing desert sun warming my lizard heart/brain, mid-century modern hotels w/ pools, and some damn fine photography.
Debbie Fleming Caffery gave an evening talk at the Annenberg Theater of the Palm Springs Art Museum. Copies of her new Radius Books title—The Spirit & The Flesh—were on hand and all copies sold out in 15 minutes! Good job, Debbie.
My favorite portfolio was by Verner Soler, a Swiss-born, Los Angeles-based photographer who has been working on an extended project that circles elegantly around themes of mortality, aging, and being far-removed from one’s extended family.
Tags: Debbie Fleming Caffery, Palm Springs Photo Festival, Verner Soler
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Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
Fellow photobook afficionado (and blogger) Jeff Ladd has just posted a thoughtful review of the new Radius Books title, Lee Friedlander: New Mexico.
Jeff begins by thinking through Friedlander’s physical approach to photographing, the sense of walking and wandering and peering over and through the urban and wilderness landscape that he encounters. He then muses on a certain sense of dissatisfaction with the work. I really appreciate the line of questioning that Jeff raises, culminating in “One of the most damning questions to ask of a book” which is “Is this necessary?”
In my opinion, this question is as crucial to the experience of creating and editing a book as it is in reading and viewing it from the perspective of the audience. Jeff goes on to state the following: “When I look over Lee’s accomplishments in 33 books and counting I find it difficutl to say yes to this one. It is not because this book is without merit, I think so simply because these bases have been well covered in a few other books now. Almost every photograph here is accounted for in similar versions elsewhere.”
In many senses, I agree with Jeff. I remember one of our first conversations with Mr. Friedlander, where he bluntly told us that “This is not an important body of work, so I don’t want a big pretentious monograph.” Since the project had initially been conceived as an accompaniment to an exhibition, we felt this allowed us the chance to be more playful and creative with our approach to the design, materials and binding of the book, as Jeff points out.
The question of what is important and what isn’t is a broad one, and ultimately a very rich one. In a world where triviality bombards us on all sides and which more often than not keeps us numb to the larger, more systemic problems facing humanity, the last thing I want to do is produce more of it. In thinking through Friedlander’s comment then, that this slim group of photographs of New Mexico was not an “important” body of work, I took it in the sense that this work is not ground-breaking. He’s not pushing the envelope, he’s not looking to re-forge a photographic identity, he’s not looking to make his name with these photographs, nor, in the end, with this book.
Friedlander has been making books since he was a young man. His first book, which was ground-breaking and did forge a photographic identity for him, and which made his name, was also, at its heart, a similar study to what the New Mexico book aspires to: a study of what things look liked photographed and what role the photographer plays in that looking.
At 74 years old, Friedlander does not seem about to change his visual vocabulary (though I wouldn’t rule it out) and in that sense, there is no new ground being broken in terms of his own personal, visual language. He likes driving in plain-jane rental cars and he likes casually wandering down sidewalks across America. He likes his super-wide Hasselblad and he likes photographing 4-5 days a week. To me, the experience of the New Mexico book is one that resonates on a level of, not only attentiveness to one’s surroundings as experienced on foot, but also to the steady, contented workings of a man in the autumn of his life who has found his voice and is happy “speaking” about almost any subject.
I like to think of each of Friedlander’s books as though they are each a poem in an anthology. And while Lee Friedlander: New Mexico doesn’t carry the same weight as his 1970 Self-Portrait or The American Monument, or even his collaborations with Jim Dine, I’m still happy for the quirkiness of The Little Screens or the visual chaos of The Desert Seen and even the sweet quietude of Stems. Were they all necessary, as books? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I’m glad he’s still steadily making work no matter where he goes, and I’m still glad he’s engaged with the book form.
[Big thanks to Jeff for all his thoughts on photobooks and for bringing his thoughts to this book!]
Tags: Lee Friedlander, Radius Books
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Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
For those of you that haven’t popped over to the Radius Books website recently, I encourage you to do so. We have continued to update the blog with news items about Radius Books, but the biggest news is the launch of our online store! All of our available titles are listed (in both signed and unsigned versions) as are most of the limited editions, at least the ones that haven’t sold out already.
Big kudos to Bad Feather, the design team of Brad Thomson and Heather Marold (Brad + Heather = Brad FHeather). Seriously, they’re only getting badder….
Tags: Bad Feather, Radius Books
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Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Saucy photo-figure Melanie McWhorter gets real with ME on her blog. Check it out! (She’s also a damn fine photographer who has been slow-cooked to perfection over a dozen years of soaking in the photobook-juices over at photo-eye. Not sure if I’ve got my metaphor all straight….)
Tags: Melanie McWhorter
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Monday, November 17th, 2008
I’ve been thinking about Lee Friedlander a great deal this month. For one thing, we just launched Lee Friedlander: New Mexico (with Radius Books and Andrew Smith Gallery). It was Friedlander’s 33rd book, a fact that sent me back to his massive 2005 MoMA retrospective catalogue to both verify and remind myself of all the books that had come before ours.
In the back of this massive exhibition catalogue (which, after all, accompanied what was the largest photographic exhibition by a living photographer in the history of MoMA) is a section entitled Books, Special Editions, and Portfolios (compiled by Dalia Azim) and which chronicles Friedlander’s output of printed matter. The first entry on the list, Photographs & Etchings (By Friedlander and Jim Dine) is from 1969. The last entry, #46, is Sticks & Stones: Architectural America, and is dated 2004. (There are several books since 2004 that I can think of, such as Cherry Blossom Time in Japan, Frederick Law Olmsted Landscapes, and of course, Lee Friedlander: New Mexico).
In talking with Lee about his books, he told us that the New Mexico book was his 33rd book (!!) and of those, Katy Homans had designed 21 (!!). I also asked him which were his favorites, to which he ever-so diplomatically replied with an analogy—”They’re like children. How can you choose a favorite?”
Below are the spreads from the MoMA catalogue which outline his books and portfolios. Many of these, thankfully, are still in-print. Friedlander, Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Diane Arbus, and the Bechers form a sort of cadre, a set of progenitors whose actions have influenced nearly all things that have happened in the last three to four decades in contemporary photography. (Lewis Baltz and Ed Ruscha are like the step-sons of this nuclear family).
Tags: Lee Friedlander
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Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
I’m involved with a wagon-load of activities this Fall, some of which are Radius Books events and some of which are not, but all of which involve either great books or great photography and sometimes both!
September 11 & 13th: New York City
Fabled sculptor John McCracken simultaneously launches a major exhibition of work at David Zwirner and launches John McCracken: Sketchbook with Radius Books. Thursday night, from 6-8pm is the opening and Saturday at 11am is the artist talk and booksigning. John McCracken Press Release.
September 19th: San Francisco
First of the Photography Book Now symposiums, to be held at Bimbo’s 365 Club.
October 10th: London
Second of the Photography Book Now symposiums, to be held at the Delfina Galleries.
October 22nd: New York City
Third of the Photography Book Now symposiums, to be held at the New Musuem.
October 23rd: New York City
Photo Plus Expo at Javitts. I’m moderating the same panel discussion I did as last year called Photobook Publishing: The Inside View. It’ll be Thursday at 3:30-5:30
October 25th: New York City
Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair has teamed up with the Art Libraries Society of New York (ARLIS/NY) to produce a conference on contemporary artists’ books. I’ll be presenting and on a panel discussion on Saturday morning in the NYPL South Court Auditorium
October 31st: Santa Fe
Andrew Smith Gallery opens Lee Friedlander: New Mexico, accompanied by a monograph of the same title by Radius Books. Friedlander will be in attendance at the opening.
Tags: Artists' Books Conference, David Zwirner, John McCracken, Photo Plus Expo, Photography Book Now
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Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
This past weekend I stumbled across (on my shelves) the small catalogue and exhibition checklist to Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “History of History” exhibition that took place at the Japan Society Gallery back in 2005-2006. I hadn’t been able to see the show, but reviewed the hardcover book that was produced in French for the photo-eye Booklist. I was impressed with the book and the thinking behind the show, which was curated by Sugimoto from his own collection of pre-historic and historic objects. This little checklist from the Japan Society installment was not illustrated, but offered single paragraph descriptions for each piece, written by Sugimoto. 
The uniqueness of this book is that it is essentially an art history essay by Sugimoto illustrated with ancient art from his personal collection, interspersed with his own photography. The thesis for this project provides much needed context for the book. “Contemporary art and ancient art are like oil and water: seemingly opposite poles. Yet for the longest time now, I have found the two melding ineffably together into one, more like water and air. Living with pieces of ancient and medieval art, I have come to feel that I might borrow upon some small increment of their beauty, so as to transplant that power into my own words. Seen here are seascapes informed by both my mentor, ancient art, and that unworthy pupil, my contemporary art. The remarks that follow constitute what I have been able to learn about the various orginal pieces, embellished slightly perhaps by my imagination.”
“Ever since the age of cave painting,” Sugimoto writes, “humans have wanted a unified vision with which to see the chaos of this world of ours. Largely, it has been artists who have filled such a role—and they still hold this function today. No matter how brilliantly religion and science might explain and persuade, there will always remain shadowy areas. Scooping up shimmering particles, these persons of vision fashion decoding devices that afford us a look around in the gloom; we call their handiwork art.”
The exhibition included Cambrian-period fossils as well as various amulets, sculptures and textiles from up to 6000 years ago that he has collected. The description for one piece in particular caught my eye.
Wheelstone, Kofun period, 4th century.
Jasper
“Jasper bracelets such as this were produced mainly in the fourth century. They were probably derived from bracelets of the preceding Yayoi period (ca. 300 BCE-300CE) made from limpets and other tropical seashells, but substituting stone from the Izumo and Hokuriku regions (in central Japan, along the Sea of Japan coast) for the shell. The striking form of this bracelet surpasses contemporary abstract sculpture in its power.”
The last sentence is what got me thinking. “The striking form of this bracelet surpasses contemporary abstract sculpture in its power.”
At Radius Books we’ve been working on a title by John McCracken called Sketchbook. In an interview with Neville Wakefield that is being published in the book, McCracken, who is himself a sculptor, says something quite similar.
John McCracken: “In a simpler way, ‘distilling the world’ is a useful concept. I remember seeing a slide once of a piece of Trojan architecture. It was a big, bulky cube-like thing, just sitting there but filled with energy and power. It’s like the Trojans knew something, knew more than we know. They distilled something about mankind into a form. It’s so simple and so partial but this power still comes through.
“Often I think that ancient buildings and some modern buildings are interesting in form for reasons that few writers or analysts can pinpoint. They talk about other things instead of this energy. So often, in art criticism or art writing, what largely gets talked about are influences and lineages and not the meaning and the things that really have power.”
It seems that Sugimoto and McCracken are both interested in a very non-quantifiable quality to art. McCracken’s own work has a very elemental, “distilled” quality to it that is hard to describe but palpable, so sophisticated and rich and yet exceedingly simple at the same time. Strong paradoxes are, to me, indicators of successful and powerful work.
Radius Books launches John McCracken: Sketchbook in New York at David Zwirner on September 11th. I’ll be there and hope to see many of you as well.
Tags: Hiroshi Sugimoto, John McCracken
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Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
This is an item for this weekend’s calendar: The Look3 Festival of the Photograph (in Charlottesville, VA — 2.5 hours south of DC) starts this Thursday, running through Sunday with a full schedule of classes, presentations, and exhibitions. I’m involved on a couple levels: Julie Blackmon and I are presenting on Friday afternoon at 1pm on the collaboration between artist and publisher (Domestic Vacations was just published by Radius Books this Spring!). ALSO, Leah BenDavid-Val and myself have co-curated an exhibition of photography books from the past several years. At the rate that great photobooks are now being published, this is an abbreviated and playful list. I’ll post photos of the event venues while there. Come down and say hi!
From the website: “Selections include works by photographers Alec Soth, Stephen Shore, Richard Misrach, Daido Moriyama, Luigi Ghirri, Boris Mikhailov, Alex Webb, and many more, with publishers Steidl, Nazraeli, Phaidon, Hatje Cantz, Aperture, Fraenkel Gallery, and others. Books will be on display to inspire both seasoned and aspiring bookmakers.”
Posted in Photography, Radius Books | 1 Comment »
Words Without Pictures (Aperture, 2010)
Short Track, by Jake Mendel
Bird Watching, by Paula McCartney