Blog

Posted on

Instruct & Delight


photo by Sarah W. Newman

On the website for The Sustainable Practice in the Arts, Robert Adams was asked, “What part does an artist play in society.” This was his answer:

First we have an obligation simply to be the citizens we want everyone to be – informed, engaged, reasonable, and compassionate. Then as artists we are called historically to a double mission, to instruct and delight, to tell the truth but also to find in it a basis for affirmation.

With this in mind, it is interesting to look at this year’s finalists for the prestigious Prix Pictet – a $100,000 award described as “the world’s leading prize in photography and sustainability.” When it comes to such vexing global problems, it seems extraordinarily difficult to fulfill Adams’ “double mission.”

Yesterday a friend of mine, Sarah Newman, sent me a link to her Kickstarter Project: Imaging Sustainability. Sarah’s plan is to photograph the sustainable urban landscape of Malmö, Sweden. She writes:

Here in the U.S., renewable energy is often kept outside of the energy-consuming cities – making energy production (and consumption) less visible in our landscape and in our consciousness. In Malmö, I will photograph green architecture and design, and people within the community, while conducting independent research on environmental and social sustainability.”

By showing us what the sustainable landscape might look like, Sarah is providing a valuable service. The challenge, I think, is to fulfill Adams’ double mission – to both instruct and delight.

I hope you’ll join me in supporting Sarah in this effort: IMAGING SUSTAINABILITY by Sarah W. Newman

Posted on

A head with wings

“Do you see something there? Why are you standing still all of a sudden?” With those words begin Anouk Kruithof’s trip into the Little Brown rabbit hole. Using hand-made montages of photographs she took in Belize, Mexico, Egypt, Morocco and Berlin, Kruithof spins a hallucinatory yarn of anxiety and desire.

Posted on

Broken Manual

Special Editon of 300 copiesSoftcover 21 cm x 29.7 cm, housed in its own unique book-safe, with a signed and numbered Alec Soth photograph and a small booklet.

Created over four years (2006-2010), Alec Soth’s newest book represents a significant departure from his previous publications. Entitled ‘Broken Manual,’ Soth investigates the places in which people retreat to escape civilization. Soth photographs monks, survivalists, hermits and runaways,but this isn’t a conventional documentary book on life “off the grid.” Instead, working with the writer Lester B. Morrison, the authors have created an underground instruction manual for those looking to escape their lives.

It is common for artists to follow up the publication of their books with ‘Special Editions,’ but in the case of Broken Manual, this edition is being presented first. Made in an edition of 300, Soth calls this the ‘Ideal Edition’ of Broken Manual. Each copy of the book is housed inside of another, one-of-a-kind book. These signed and numbered ‘shell’ books are unique and cut by hand. Inside the shell, there is also a small booklet entitled ‘Liberation Billfold Manifest’ and an 8×10” print signed and numbered by Alec Soth and Lester B. Morrison.

Posted on

3 Zines by Lester B. Morrison

Three editioned publications by Lester B. Morrison in one convenient package.

Library for Broken Men
Edition of 500
20 pages, 5.5×8 in, staple-bound, b/w

Lonely Bearded Me
Edition of 500
20 pages, 5.5×8 in, staple-bound, b/w

Lester Becomes Me
Edition of 500
20 pages, 5.5×8 in, staple-bound, color offset

Posted on

Conductors of the Moving World

In the autumn of 1972, a delegation of Japanese police officials visited the United States to study traffic control in several large cities, including New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. The unofficial photographer for the delegation was Eizo Ota, an inspector with the law enforcement department of the Yamanashi Prefecture, and he produced a record of the group’s travels that might best be described as forensic tourism.

Using Inspector Ota’s snapshots as launching points, Brad Zellar plundered traffic manuals, haiku anthologies, the Watergate transcripts, and The Godfather for textual inspiration. The mysterious result is a Zen travelogue through 1972 America.

From a collection of 60 C-Prints, a mix-and-match assortment of 17 will be hand-tipped into individual volumes, making each book a singular work of art.