Book Review The Inhabitants Photographs by Raymond Meeks. Text by George Weld. Reviewed by Cheryl Van Hooven “Chosen as the sixth Immersion laureate, the French–American Photographic Commission established by the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, American photographer Raymond Meeks’ brief was to create a book and exhibition based on his residency in France during the summer of 2022..."

The Inhabitants. 

By Raymond Meeks & George Weld.

The Inhabitants
Photographs by Raymond Meeks.
Text by George Weld.
MACK, London, England, 2023. 172 pp., 8½x11¾".

Chosen as the sixth Immersion laureate, the French–American Photographic Commission established by the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, American photographer Raymond Meeks’ brief was to create a book and exhibition based on his residency in France during the summer of 2022.

“How should we let them know we were here?”

At first, just looking and making no photographs, Meeks immersed himself in Calais and the Pays Basque near the French-Spanish border. Although a stopping point for endless caravans of migrants braving perilous obstacles to get to Europe and the U.K, there are no caravansaries here offering respite and safety. 

 While volunteering with the aid organization Care4Calais, Meeks soon discarded his original plans to make portraits of the migrants. In a conversation with David Campany at ICP, Meeks said he realized that formal portraiture would take him out of encounters and experiences, out of the complexity of being lost, out of being available to what he was witnessing. Instead, he followed the traces left by the migrants, focusing on the places they inhabited, however briefly, on the evidence of their presence, human detritus, and on the land itself, seemingly as impregnable as their access to asylum. Without a single migrant’s photo, The Inhabitants nonetheless carries the feeling of a journey of displacement, bewilderment, of being a stranger in a strange land.

“The edge of the water, the edge of land . . . beyond this, what?”

To bring other voices into the latent narrative, Meeks engaged poet and writer George Weld, . Their collaboration, The Inhabitants, is a tour de force of the marriage of photographs and poetic text, each powerful in its own right, but transcendent together. Weld’s months of research and writing drew inspiration from such varied sources as Homer’s Odyssey, Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, Agnes Varda films The Wasteland, The Road, and Children of Men. Always in the first person, whether experiencing or observing, his extended poem envelops the reader in closely intimate conversation with voices of lament, of wonder, and longing. When asked about whose voices, Weld responded, “The voices here are all invented . . . They come together not to document a reality but to create one.” 

Despite their independent work and previous discussions about how the text and its many voices could interact with the pictures, both Meeks and Weld agreed that the actual form of the book, it’s meaning, came together during the editing and physical collaboration in Meeks’ studio in the Hudson Valley. Having no prior experience of these places other than Meeks’ archive of over 4000 photographs. Weld said he had “lived in Ray’s world” for those months as they shaped the book.

“I carry seeds with me, sewn in the hem of my jacket.”

Slip-cased, The Inhabitants’ textured off-white cover and barely visible debossed title hints at the tenuous traces of what’s left behind. Opening immediately to a white field and simple but propulsive line by Weld, the book’s tone is signaled by the shock of the following page: a full bleed, dark and formidable landscape. Thus, the journey begins.

Primarily in black-and-white, Meeks’ photos of mysterious dark forms, dense foliage, and broken industrial remnants convey unsettling undertones and elicit feelings of menace and disorientation. Is that blackened entrance a place of shelter or of danger?

With contributions by Meeks, Weld, Morgan Crowcroft-Brown and Michael Mack, the cinematic design underscores Meeks’ restless framing: up, down, near, far, oblique, direct, and the deft and generous use of white space cradles the weight of Meeks’ photos. Midway, a run of subtle color images provides a brief pause in the black-and-white, perhaps a glimpse of a land of promise, a hoped-for future. The choice of a small, italicized font elevates the sparsely distributed text which often rests in isolation on the page and adds counterpoint to the photos. Every decision supports their intention. 

There are many ways to read The Inhabitants, photos first, text first, both together, but in order to absorb its layered richness and depths, I would recommend slowly and repetitively. Flowing as tide and current in contrapuntal movement, the pictures and words, neither taking dominance, weave together a fully resonant experience.

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Cheryl Van Hooven is a photographer and writer based in New York and often working in the California Mojave Desert. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints & Photographs, Imagery Estate Winery Permanent Collection at Sonoma State University, among others. She is currently working on a photo/text book.

Book Review Somersault Photographs by Raymond Meeks Reviewed by Brian Arnold "If you can think back to your earliest experiences in a school P.E. class, think back to the time you first learned to roll a somersault. You were taught to crouch down, form your body into a ball, and then try to roll in a forward direction. I have no doubt this is good for physiological development, clearly helping to develop cognitive muscle control. I also now like to think of this act as a yogic metaphor implanted in our early childhood psyches; as if by rolling our bodies like the gears inside a clock we are taught to embody the cycles of time..."

Somersault. By Raymond Meeks.

Somersault
Photographs by Raymond Meeks

MACK, London, UK, 2021. 72 pp., 6¾x9¾".

If you can think back to your earliest experiences in a school P.E. class, think back to the time you first learned to roll a somersault. You were taught to crouch down, form your body into a ball, and then try to roll in a forward direction. I have no doubt this is good for physiological development, clearly helping to develop cognitive muscle control. I also now like to think of this act as a yogic metaphor implanted in our early childhood psyches; as if by rolling our bodies like the gears inside a clock we are taught to embody the cycles of time.

Somersault is also the newest book by photographer Raymond Meeks. It’s a meditation on the passage of time, particularly time understood as a relationship between parent and child. Billed as a collaborative project with Adam Meeks (his son?) and about his daughter Abbey, Somersault is best understood as an internal investigation by the photographer, about a sense of self he can only know because of his children. The book is a lovely, poetic study of time, and is full of love, longing, melancholy, and affection.

The first two pictures — on the cover and then the opening page — reveal a great deal about the narrative of the book. The cover photograph shows Meeks’ daughter Abbey standing in an overgrown field next to a blooming rose bush. The field itself looks unkempt — she is standing among overgrown grasses with a fallen fence behind her — but the rose conjures a sense of beauty and hope. There is also something about her pose that references classics of art history, a posture as effortless as it evocative (I think of Botticelli’s Venus). The picture embodies a lovely metaphor, evoking beauty and love amidst such a dissonant and chaotic world. Opening the cover, the first picture is an apple tree in the fall, leaves already down but some of the fruit still clinging to the branches. Again, this picture offers lovely metaphors, here about family, belonging, and the passage of time. Behind the tree, in soft-focus along the horizon, is a trestle, somehow suggesting the identities we assume over a lifetime, a bridge that connects the pieces of ourselves, the crux of the narrative Meeks suggests in documenting Abbey’s transition from childhood into life as a fully independent and mature woman.

The pages that follow weave together photographs of landscapes and portraits of Abbey. The landscapes often appear broken or neglected — a sort of terrain vague that so frequently attracts photographers — but also strangely effervescent, full of warmth and love. Repeatedly, the landscapes are made around the railroad lines and trestles that I imagine to be near their family home. For me this helps to confirm the narrative or metaphor I envisioned with the opening photographs, emphasizing a life always moving forward into the distance, like the tracks themselves.

It is interesting that pictures of abandoned landscapes and concrete arches supporting the railroad can feel so intimate. Some of this is undeniable a connection with place (poet Lorine Neidecker defines home as a place where “no fact is isolate.”). Much of this feeling, however, comes from juxtaposing them with the portraits; Meeks offers a heartfelt and complex view of his daughter. Most of these portraits feel like meaningful glances, spontaneous recognitions that evoke an incredible feeling of affection. It is a very romantic vision, but also it feels easy to understand; I think all of us, photographers especially, can relate to such spontaneous and deeply felt connections.

The book concludes with several short passages of writing by Abbey, reflecting on her own relationship to the photographs and her emergent sense of self. These certainly help with the intimacy of the book, and she presents an ingratiating degree of self-awareness. I can’t shake the feeling, however, that her words were coached and edited to fit the narrative Meeks intended. Perhaps they feel just a little too perfect. With such a mature and solid approach to making pictures, I can’t help but think something a bit less polished would add a surprising element to the book. Interspersed with Abbey’s words are three photographs of concrete walls, boulders, and trees, all made beneath the train tracks. The pictures embody a sense of loss — clearly Meeks reflecting on his daughter moving on from the family home — with the last picture being a circle of sunlight illuminating one of the walls, shadows of a tree cast across its center. It appears almost like the face of a clock, concluding this rumination on life and time only a growing child can reveal.

Understanding Meeks’ intentions requires understanding and acknowledging his techniques. The tonalities and colors of his photographs are as exquisite as they are evocative (even in reproduction). His use of tones and colors are simultaneously full and muted, both delicate and assured, offering a strong feeling that something profound exists beneath the surface of things, something we can feel and experience emotionally only through the phenomenon of sight, and here fully articulated through the craft of photography. The technique of these pictures also reveals tremendous sensitivity and caring, as though reflecting on the palette mirrors a reflection on the self. I love the idea that careful connection with our tools is somehow redeeming, and in thinking of Meeks’ pictures this way I am reminded of the closing line in the beautiful and tragic poem by Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World: “Praise the mutilated world/and the grey feather a thrush lost,/and the gentle light that strays and vanishes/and returns.”

It is difficult not to compare Somersault with Meeks’ previous book, ciprian honey cathedral, a book about his partner, Adrianna Ault. The strategies of the two books are the same, juxtaposing portraits with landscapes (clearly the same place). In the most basic sense, the narratives of the books are the same, too, both addressing the redemptive quality of love while living in such a confusing and discordant world. As a much smaller and more humble production, Somersault offers a greater feeling of intimacy, and falls less into the trope of the male artist and his epic love (please don’t misunderstand me, ciprian honey cathedral is an amazing book, but there is undeniably an exhaustive canon of photographers looking at their wives and lovers).

In looking over Meeks’ career, it is easy to understand why so many regard him as one of the primary photobook makers of the day — Halfstory Halife, Crime Victim Chronicle (a collaboration with Deborah Luster), and Idyll: Orchard Volume 3 (a collaboration with Mark Steinmetz) are as masterful as they are inventive. Somersault is less inventive in form and is much more sentimental, but nevertheless the work of a compelling and masterful photographer. As is always the case with MACK, the book is a delightful object made with a remarkable sensitivity to craft and an understanding of the book as a unique art form. The latter is no small achievement given the high print runs the publisher is capable of fulfilling. I encourage those interested in Meeks but unfamiliar with his work to act quickly on this book, because if you look for some of his earlier works you will find them prohibitively expensive and hard to find. Those with any sustained interest in the photographer’s work won’t be disappointed either.

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Brian Arnold is a photographer, writer, and translator based in Ithaca, NY. He has taught and exhibited his work around the world and published books with Oxford University Press, Cornell University, and Afterhours Books. Brian is a two-time MacDowell Fellow and in 2014 received a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation/American Institute for Indonesian Studies.

Last month, I wrote about three different gallery artists and their exquisite prints that reside in our flat files here at photo-eye Gallery. In this installment, I will focus on the artist books of Raymond Meeks, some of which also come with limited edition prints.

Likeness of Reality by Raymond Meeks, Edition of 15, $1500

Likeness of Reality
front cover detail

Likeness of Reality is one of Raymond Meeks' handmade artist books. It showcases his beautiful black & white photographs and unique design sense, with small details including a photograph printed on the velum cover, pictured left. His attention to these small details elevates the book to an art-object; one that can be held, appreciated and discovered many times over. The photographs were made in Greenland, many of which were tipped-in. Likeness of Reality is now out-of-print, however photo-eye Gallery has one copy available. Please email Erin Azouz to inquire about its availability.

The Orchard series, published by Silas Finch, is a set of collaborative book projects between Raymond Meeks and various writers and photographers. Meeks explains, "each journal strives to reach beyond a documentary approach and offer a visual conversation between artist, subject and audience."

Published in 2010, the first volume, Crime Victims Chronicle, is a collaboration between Raymond Meeks and photographer Deborah Luster who provides a set of beautiful black & white photographs from her series Tooth for an Eye, as well as Rose Preston who provides the text from her book, Crime Victims Guidebook. The resulting publication, Crime Victims Chronicle, is a stellar example of the old adage, two heads are better than one. In this case, three heads are even better than two.

Orchard, Volume 1: Crime Victims Chronicle – Patron Edition, $750
By Raymond Meeks, Deborah Luster and Rose Preston

The three artists' contributions work together to produce a symbiotic book focusing on a centralized issue -- crime. Crime Victims Chronicle was originally sold in a Contributor edition of 100 copies and Sustainer edition of 75 copies -- both of which have since sold out. However, the Patron edition of 25 copies is still available as of today for $750, which comes with an aluminum-mounted silver halide transparency by Deborah Luster, as pictured above left.

The second volume, Not Seen | Not Said was a collaboration with Wes Mills, whose fourteen tipped-in drawings work beautifully with Meeks' photographs -- some of which depict Mills walking among rocky cliffs and expansive landscapes in Oregon. The Contributor edition of 100 is sold out, but the Sustainer (edition of 75) and Patron (edition of 15) are still available. Melanie McWhorter wrote about this book on the photo-eye Blog.

Orchard, Volume 3: Idyll – Sustainer Edition – $225
By Raymond Meeks and Mark Steinmetz

The third and most recent volume in the Orchard series, Idyll, comes with two books. Though I hate to pick favorites, Meeks has clearly hit his stride in collaborative projects here. In the first book, Steinmetz and Meeks seamlessly blend two bodies of black & white work in a resolved edit and sequence. The second book consists entirely of photographs by Steinmetz with another great edit and sequence from another body of work. Idyll is still available in the Sustainer Edition ($225) and Patron Edition ($750). The Patron Edition is presented in a beautiful walnut box and comes with two silver gelatin prints.

In short, Raymond Meeks is a master of the artist book. The subtle details from tipped-in photographs and drawings to the clean and effective design makes them not just books but works of art. In the case of Likeness of Reality and the Orchard books in the Patron edition, you also receive an original print. As a represented gallery artist, photo-eye also has a selection of prints by Raymond Meeks. If you are interested in acquiring any of the books or individual prints, please contact the gallery.

Not Seen | Not Said

The second volume of Orchard series, Not Seen | Not Said, contains photographs by Raymond Meeks and Wes Mills, along with the minimalist drawings of Mills. The book shows Mills wandering in a barren land as Meeks follows, documenting the artist's inquisitive steps with his camera. The photographs were taken by Meeks between 2008-2010 in two locations, an orchard owned by Mills' family (apropos to the series title) and the John Day fossil beds near Kimberly, Oregon. Accompanying Meeks' photographs are 17 reproductions of text and drawings by Mills. Lovingly and carefully printed on green colored paper though also seemingly aged and discolored, they have been tipped into the books pages after binding. The cover of Not Seen | Not Said is a silver halide transparency of one of Meeks' portraits of Mills in the fossil beds and is straight-stitched onto the front of the book with, what the publisher calls, a "really big sewing machine and steady hands."

From Not Seen | Not Said

Like the first volume of Orchard, the book is available in three versions: Contributor, Sustainer and Patron. Accompanying both the Sustainer and Patron editions is a second book titled India, containing images photographed by Mills in 2007 while on a motorcycle trip around the country. Aesthetically and rhythmically, the images feel like they could have been made by Meeks had he been along for the journey. Mills' photographs, although not a travelogue or documentary project, provide a realistic and sincere perspective of India and the people he encountered. For the Sustainer version, Not Seen | Not Said is presented along with India in a slipcase with a hand typeset letterpress cover, like the cover of India.

Sustainer edition -- Not Seen | Not Said and India

The deluxe version of the three editions, the Patron version, includes both Not Seen | Not Said and India along with an original drawing by Wes Mills and a silver gelatin print by Raymond Meeks. The print by Meeks is an outtake from the book, and although showing bias here as I have not yet seen it, I'm sure it will be both a beautiful image and print. Mills' drawing will be presented in a custom-made wood frame sized to match the book. Instead of presenting a simple reproduction, Mills is cutting out the elements of his drawing and attaching them to the paper, effectively creating each piece by hand. All of these elements will be gathered and presented in a handmade cloth-covered slipcase.

Patron edition -- Not Seen | Not Said, India, and framed Wes Mills drawing

The pairing of Silas Finch and Raymond Meeks for the Orchard series has allowed both partners to join their passion, sweat and love of bookmaking to bring to fruition the top-quality artist's books they strive to create. These publications are indeed book fetish objects, designed to be intimately acquainted with as you look through the silver halide cover, lift the tipped in plates of Mills' drawings, read the poems and wind through the hand crafted object. If you are so lucky to possess the Patron version, the journey also includes delicately holding the Meeks' print up to the light, watching the silver shimmer as it is lit from side to side, exploring all the tones in the gelatin print and proudly hang the understated and exquisite framed Mills drawing on the wall.

From India

The first volume of Orchard with photographs by Raymond Meeks and Deborah Luster is sold out in the Contributor version, but as of today a few copies of the Sustainer and Patron editions are still available. The Orchard series is on going and would be a wonderful addition to any library. The Contributor and Sustainer versions of Not Seen | Not Said, like the first volume of the Orchard series, are available in an edition of 100 and 75, respectively. The Patron version, however, has only been produced in an edition of 15 (the Patron version of the first volume was 25). All three versions are sure to sell out quickly. The publication date is tentatively scheduled at June 30th, although there may be a few production delays considering the meticulous quality of the production. We are happily reserving copies now. -- Melanie McWhorter

Pre-order a copy of the book here.

Currently on Display is our on-going weekly feature investigating the individual works that are included in the show currently on display at photo-eye Gallery. These artist features include the images selected for this exhibition as well as the artists' thoughts and inspirations behind the individual image or images.

The featured images this week are: Abandoned Ostrich Egg, Amboseli 2007, by Nick Brandt and, August 25th, 2006 and Fallen Tree, 1996 by Raymond Meeks.

Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt -- Abandoned Ostrich Egg, Amboseli 2007

"One October afternoon, I found this ostrich egg abandoned on the lake bed in Amboseli. The sight struck such a chord in me that I stopped in my tracks and immediately set up the camera on the tripod in front of the egg, turned it in the direction of where the sun would eventually set,and waited several hours until it did. The image seemed the appropriate final photo in the second book - A Shadow Falls - of my trilogy, partly because of its ambiguity. Is it an image of hope or despair, the end of the world or some kind of hopeful new beginning? However the viewer may choose to interpret the photo, the photo sets up the final book that I am currently working on in the trilogy, with attendant darker vision." -Nick Brandt

See more work by Nick Brandt here.


Raymond Meeks

Raymond Meeks -- August 25th, 2006

"Blue/green and silent."  -Raymond Meeks

Raymond Meeks -- Fallen Tree, 1996

 "I was driving towards the pine ridge reservation in South Dakota, the home of the Oglala Sioux nation and the birthplace of Leonard Peltier, who was convicted for aiding and abetting the execution style murder of two F.B.I agents during a 1975 shootout on the reservation. The indictment has been controversial, the subject of a film by Robert Redford and Michael Apted, Incident at Oglala, which portrays Peltier as a political prisoner.

I had just come from the U.S. penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas where I’d made a few portraits of Leonard Peltier for a magazine commission. The fallen tree, partially submerged in this dried, frozen river bed, seemed a fitting metaphor to accompany the story I was illustrating." -Raymond Meeks

See more work by Raymond Meeks here.


Please contact me if you would like additional information or would like to receive email updates about Nick Brandt or Raymond Meeks.

Anne Kelly, Associate Director photo-eye Gallery


*Next week's featured artists will be Jock Sturges, Mark Klett and Don Hong-Oai

Read the first four posts:
PART ONE - Jo Whaley and David Trautrimas
PART TWO - Tom Chambers and Laurie Tümer
PART THREE - Hiroshi Watanabe, Michael Levin and Julie Blackmon
PART FOUR –Zöe Zimmerman, James Pitts and Kevin O’Connell

Opening a Raymond Meeks book is like opening a treasure from a poet, an artist, an eccentric friend-of-the-family. This little gem, who will stay, is simply bound in printed paper boards modeled on 1970s wall paper. As each layer opens beneath your fingers, you discover photos, poems and a handwritten letter. 

Raymond Meeks puts his heart into every project -- each book is a cathartic experience, purging the bad while embracing the good. who will stay is the third book in a trilogy -- following carousel (now out-of-print) and amwell, continuum -- and the exit for Meeks' recent journey. The images in this volume represent salvation, rebirth, transition and, literally, the fallow ground waiting for the spring planting. The modesty of the imagery shown in the plates extends to the price, as each edition is so reasonably priced that its cost does not truly represent the value, worth and pleasure attained by viewing this book. 

Read the poem that accompanies who will stay on the citation page and read Daniel Espeset's small review in the photo-eye New Arrivals Newsletter.

Raymond Meeks' who will stay 

(shown with matted silver-gelatin print)

Interior image of who will stay

Interior image of who will stay

Interior image of who will stay