photo-eye | BLOG: July 2016

PRE-ORDERS

Record No.32
Photographs by Daido Moriyama

Signed copies available to order!

Shipping in the first weeks of September!

"About half a century ago, I used to spend most of my days wandering around in the streets of Kobe. I was just over twenty, and as I particularly liked ships and harbors, the exotic city of Kobe was for me a thrilling wonderland sort of place.

"...the city of Kobe, that pretty urban area sandwiched between the sea and the beautiful mountains with a single railway running right through it, hasn’t changed at all!"— Daido Moriyama

photo-eye is taking pre-orders for SIGNED copies of Record No.32. If our supplier runs out, orders will be fulfilled in the order in which they are received. The cutoff time for ordering in our shipment is Tuesday, August 2nd at 12:00 PM MDT.

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The Traveller. By Harvey Benge.
Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2016.

The Traveller

Reviewed by Karen Jenkins

The Traveller.
Photographs by Harvey Benge.
Dewi Lewis Publishing, Stockport, England, 2016. 96 pp., 88 color illustrations, 8¼x11½".

Harvey Benge’s traveler seems to be the rootless kind, moving along an ambiguous course, forked off a forgotten beginning, with an unknown end. His photographs suggest a largely solitary journey, with appearances by unnamed characters on emotional flyby and layover; guest stars out of place and time. Relationships are opaque — with figures out of focus or closed-off, encased and disguised. A blond woman is recognizable in recurring depictions and inhabits her own skin with increasing agency throughout the series of photographs; yet her relationship to the traveler remains unknown. Several headless female nudes and the occasional more outward-facing, from-the-hip street views are disorienting additions to the cast. Benge’s own image pops up five times in the form of photo booth strips, suggestive of a passport portrait. Handwritten annotations situate him in Paris, year after year. He looks in turn bemused and circumspect, even tired. They are our only anchor to the specificity of place and the passage of time; in his face, his identification, an ever-modulating, equivocal emcee.

photo-eye Gallery is excited to formally debut three online portfolios corresponding with our exhibition Michael Kenna: A Retrospective on view this Friday, July 29th, as a part of the Railyard Arts District's Last Friday Art Walk. While the exhibition showcases more than 50 beautifully installed black-and-white works, the gallery has over 70 total prints available by the artist. Michael Kenna: A Retrospective features selected works produced by the artist between 1987 and 2016 and includes images made in Japan, China, France, Egypt, South Korea and the United States, among other countries. Continuing through September 10th, 2016, an opening, artist reception, and book signing will take place on Friday, August 5th from 5 – 7 PM.

Retrospecting Sandy Hill. By Chris Shaw. Morel, 2015.

Forrest Soper selects Retrospecting Sandy Hill by Chris Shaw from Morel as Book of the Week.

Indago. By Yurian Quintanas. editions 77, 2016.

Indago

Reviewed by Sarah Bay Gachot

Indago
Photographs by Yurian Quintanas
editions 77, Paris, France, 2016. In English. 80 pp., 37 black-and-white illustrations, 9½x12½".

There is one short paragraph of quoted text in Yurian Quintanas’ Indago, his dark photographic foray into nature. It’s from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Printed small, Quintanas ends the book with this, at the top of an otherwise grey light-rag-textured page. It’s a relatively well-known quote from the section of Walden in which Thoreau writes on “Where I’ve Lived, and What I’ve Lived For,” but I would argue the words following this passage are more appropriate to Quintanas’ black-mirror view of nature displayed in Indago: “...I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world.” The images of Indago are raw, tangled, and full of wet dirt. They depict the night mystery of nature — this sentiment of meanness, of sucking the marrow out of life, suit their sublimity well.

In this Behind the Photo segment, Nick Brandt describes his intentions behind Underpass with Elephants, 2015 (Lean Back, Your Life is On Track), perhaps the most compelling image from his latest series Inherit the Dust. In his own words, Brandt expands on the transformative power of context and the loss of mankind's connection to nature. Inherit the Dust is currently on view at photo-eye Gallery through July 23rd, 2016.

Underpass with Elephants, 2015 (Lean Back, Your Life is On Track) – © Nick Brandt

The Power of Nature. By Lori Nix. Wienand Verlag, 2016.

Maggie Blanchard picks The Power of Nature by Lori Nix from Wienand Verlag as Book of the Week.

"Lori Nix — The Power of Nature is a catalogue from the exhibition of the same name held at the Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau, Germany in 2015. The book contains two bodies of work, The City and Lost, but as both projects focus on the power of nature and the non-existence of mankind, having them together is not incongruous.

IN STOCK

Looking In. Robert Frank's The Americans
Expanded Edition
Photographs by Robert Frank
Edited and with Text by Sarah Greenough

This edition is a reprint of the first edition. It includes reproductions of Robert Frank's contact sheets for The Americans, variant croppings of the images that changed from one book edition to another, a comparative sequencing of preliminary and subsequently published editions of The Americans, a map and chronology, correspondence and archival materials.

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Unspeaking Likeness. By Arne Svenson.
Twin Palms Publishers, 2016.

Unspeaking Likeness

Reviewed by George Slade

Unspeaking Likeness
Photographs by Arne Svenson
Twin Palms Publishers, Santa Fe, 2016. 112 pp., 49 duotone illustrations, 11x14".

Many related impressions and perhaps a few tangential thoughts arise as I regard this strange and remarkable book.

I’m aware of the scale of the book. Its dimensions could easily form the width and breadth of a box capable of containing a human head. I can hold the book in front of myself and convincingly replace my head with one of the reconstructed heads in Svenson’s photographs. Thinking of heads in boxes reminds me of what happened to Tracy, Gwyneth Paltrow’s character in the 1995 film Seven, and of Mills, her husband, played by Brad Pitt, who discovers the box and its contents.

In this Behind the Photo segment, Nick Brandt describes the creation of Wasteland with Elephant, the signature image from his new series Inherit the Dust. In his own words, Brandt expands on the scene’s characters and context including details about the elephant, the area, and the human inhabitants. Inherit the Dust is currently on view at photo-eye Gallery through July 23rd, 2016.

Wasteland with Elephant, 2015 – © Nick Brandt

Geografia de la diferencia. By Philippe Gruenberg.
Meier Ramirez, 2015.

Olga Yatskevich picks Geografia de la diferencia Philippe Gruenberg from Meier Ramirez.

PRE-ORDER DEADLINES

In Absence
Photographs by Monika Macdonald

In Absence will not be distributed in the US by the publisher. photo-eye Bookstore is ordering copies for our US clients.

The women portrayed in In Absence all have one thing in common: their solitary search for belonging — to something or someone. This autobiographical account, which is also a psychological and intimate reflection, runs like a common thread throughout the images. The women are like-minded in their hesitation and uncertainty; in their longing, or yearning for some form of love.

photo-eye is taking pre-orders for copies of In Absence. If our supplier runs out, orders will be fulfilled in the order in which they are received. The cutoff time for ordering is Tuesday, July 12th at 12:00 PM Mountain Time.

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Astres Noirs. By Katrin Koenning & Sarker Protick.
Chose Commune, 2016.

Astres Noirs

Reviewed by Colin Pantall

Astres Noirs
Photographs by Katrin Koenning and Sarker Protick.
Chose Commune, Paris, France, 2016. 168 pp., 79 black-and-white illustrations, 6¼x8¾".

There’s a lot of black in photography at the moment. Awoiska van der Molen’s photobook Sequester shows us the gradations of blacks in her European landscape work, Paul Gaffney’s Stray takes us on a night-time journey through the forest in a psychological exploration that makes us part of the landscape we live in. From Spain, David Jimenez and Jon Cazenave are working with extremes of light to express the sensations of land, of belonging, of home, and of the metaphysical.