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The cover image for Joshua Lutz's new book, Mind the Gap, is a fitting summary of the series, which doesn't so much chronicle as echo his descent into schizophrenia, as well as contemporary social, political, and economic madness.
The collapsing house of cards is not only the inevitable outcome of such a feeble construction; it also symbolizes the fragile balance between the rational and irrational. And the fact that the image hangs in the balance between the two ends of that spectrum makes it all the more exemplary of the work.
Each section of the book consists of a series of engaging -- but not always reliable -- texts, followed by enigmatic images organized around the concept of the gap: a fire fighter hangs suspended above a cryptic setting; a load of dirt just begins to cascade from a dump truck; a colorful butterfly visits a flower while an upturned vehicle sits in the blurry background; self-injury scars mark a young woman's forearm; a bloody razor sits near a pulp fiction book; an undertaker leaves the mortuary at the end of the day.
Mind the Gap is a deeply personal and timely book that also has great universality: "a reference to the gap between thoughts as well as the gap between coherence and confusion." Indeed, these days, it's getting much harder to tell the difference.
Purchase Book
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| Mind the Gap, by Joshua Lutz. Schilt Publishing, 2018. |
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| Mind the Gap, by Joshua Lutz. Schilt Publishing, 2018. |
Laura M. André received her PhD in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught photo history at the University of New Mexico before leaving academia to work with photobooks. She is the manager of photo-eye's book division.