Antone Dolezal
I tear away the shrink wrap from my copy of Lost Coast and notice the gold flakes from the foil stamping begin to wear away and embed themselves into my skin. The book remains unopened and I’m already taken by the impermanence of the object. It’s a smart design element, uplifting to the photographs inside and somewhat telling of the photographer who took them.
From what I can gather of Curran Hatleberg, he is a bit of a drifter, moving around the United States in search of overlooked communities and in-between spaces that echo the dreams and despair merged within the ethos of a nation. The photographs here - taken in the coastal town of Eureka, California – reflect a human struggle lying beneath the greatness of Northern California’s natural beauty. It is a story prompted by literary cues and mythic themes, one that wrestles with the everyday and the timeless. But of equal importance, it is a book that embodies the fragments and uncertainties of a changing society.
Purchase Book Here
From what I can gather of Curran Hatleberg, he is a bit of a drifter, moving around the United States in search of overlooked communities and in-between spaces that echo the dreams and despair merged within the ethos of a nation. The photographs here - taken in the coastal town of Eureka, California – reflect a human struggle lying beneath the greatness of Northern California’s natural beauty. It is a story prompted by literary cues and mythic themes, one that wrestles with the everyday and the timeless. But of equal importance, it is a book that embodies the fragments and uncertainties of a changing society.
Purchase Book Here
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ZZYZX. By Gregory Halpern. Mack, 2016. |
ZZYZX
Photographs by Gregory Halpern
Photographs by Gregory Halpern
The desert east of Los Angeles is literally on the edge of civilization. This is a space both sacred and mundane, marked by a seemingly uninhabitable terrain, yet known as a safe haven for passing transients and new religious movements. It is within this backdrop that Gregory Halpern begins an epic story swaying between the margins of the real and the mystical. Caught between paradise and a psychedelic alarm meant to conjure allusions of humanity’s potential for redemption and its inevitable collapse. ZZYZX serves as a necessary allegory for our time.
Read the review by Adam Bell on photo-eye Blog
Purchase Book Here
Read the review by Adam Bell on photo-eye Blog
Purchase Book Here
I’m usually suspicious of over-sized monographs. For me, the over-sized book becomes cumbersome to hold and tends to steal my focus away from the edit and imagery inside. Yet, as an object, Matter functions more so as a portfolio of photographs than as a traditional book sequence. Here I become consumed by the desert landscape, enabling my psyche to be absorbed into the strange world Michael Lundgren has crafted. It is a body of work leaning towards the raw terror of the natural world, while also drifting into the realm of science fiction. There is a layering of tension hiding just beneath the surface and captured through a collision of reoccurring motifs suggesting death, human destruction and transcendence into the cosmos. As if guided by a modern-day mystic, Matter takes us on a jarring and uncanny journey into the sublime.
Purchase Book Here
Purchase Book Here
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