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"Mike Slack is no stranger to the photobook world. In addition to his many acclaimed monographs, Slack also co-runs The Ice Plant, a publisher responsible for some of the best photobooks made in the past decade. Based in Los Angeles, Slack has quickly become a major player in the world of contemporary photography after taking up photography in his late twenties. The Transverse Path (or Nature’s Little Secret) is his latest monograph, and in my sincere opinion, his best work to date.
Fans of Slack's oeuvre will notice familiar motifs in this new body of work. Geometric peculiarities and abandoned detritus alike are bathed in golden light. The poetic landscape is so familiar that you easily become engrossed in the work, yet just alien enough to keep you captivated after multiple readings. While primarily shot in the American West, Slack weaves in photographs from Peru, France, and Hawaii with seamless transitions. The end result is a fictitious dreamscape that feels like home and an unfamiliar land all at once.
Romantic and witty, serene and disorganized, simplistic and complex, it becomes hard to pin down exactly why this book is so powerful. The Transverse Path is such a tactile book, that when reading it you are instantly transported into Slack’s fantastical world. This book holds its own alongside publications like ZZYZX and Lago, but more importantly, it adds to the photographic conversation.
The mark of a good photobook is the impact that it leaves on the viewer, and The Transverse Path certainly accomplishes this goal. In the past week, I have picked up this book almost incessantly. Whether I spend an hour reading the book, or a few minutes glancing through the images, this book always astonishes me with the amount of skill, thought, and beauty that permeates the pages. Ultimately, this book serves as a wonderful entry point into one of the rising stars of the photographic world, and a stunning example of the masterful artistry that can be found in a successful photobook." — Forrest Soper
Purchase Book
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| The Transverse Path: (or Nature's Little Secret) By Mike Slack. The Ice Plant, 2017. |
Forrest Soper is a photographer and artist based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. A graduate of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, he also has previously worked at Bostick & Sullivan. Forrest is the Editor of photo-eye Blog.
http://forrestsoper.com/