The Midnight Garden — a unique presentation from 21st Editions.
Six Cy DeCosse platinum prints of night blooming flowers presented individually with their respective texts in a handmade ash and cherry wood box. Integrated into the box cover and tray is an essay by Carol Wood, a John Keats poem, and colophon, all letterpress printed on hand-painted papers. This modular set can be displayed separately or as a group. Limited to 33 boxed sets.
Overall: 18 x 14 1/2 x 3 inches Each signed platinum print: 14 1/2 x 11 inches Edition of 33
Please contact Pam or Steve at 508-398-3000 or 21st@21stEditions.com to reserve one of the remaining sets from the edition of 33.
One of the items included in the book is a hand written list by Pablo Picasso recommending artists for the 1913 Armory Show and in which he phonetically spells ‘Duchamp’. Leo Castelli, Joseph Cornell, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Alexander Calder and more are all here.
At times introspective, humorous, and resolute, but always revealing and engaging, Lists is a unique firsthand account of American cultural history that augments the personal biographies of some of the most celebrated and revered artists of the last two centuries.
Many of the lists are historically important, throwing a flood of light on a moment, movement, or event; others are private, providing an intimate view of an artist’s personal life: Pablo Picasso itemized his recommendations for the Armory Show in 1912; architect Eero Saarinen enumerated the good qualities of the then New York Times art editor and critic Aline Bernstein, his second wife; sculptor Alexander Calder’s address book reveals the who’s who of the Parisian avant-garde in the early twentieth century. In the hands of their creators, these artifacts become works of art in and of themselves.
Christian Peterson, who many of you will know from his previous life as Associate Curator of Photographs at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is now selling fine photography books, especially first editions, rare, out of print and signed. He has a website at www.christianapeterson.com where there are currently six catalogues online.
I first met Tom Persinger when I spoke at the F295 Symposium back in 2008 and I’m really honoured that he asked me to be a contributor to his new bookPhotography Beyond Technique.
You can pre-order the book on Amazon now for shipping after January 21st.
Photography Beyond Technique — Essays from F295 on the Informed Use of Alternative and Historical Photographic Processes
Edited by Tom Persinger.
Photography is not dying and has not died. In fact, it is more vigorous than ever. It has been an ever-changing medium since its earliest days, and while near-obsession with the technology of the day may have defined photography over the course of its existence, photography is much more than hardware and software. Photography is communication, whether chemical or digital, tangible or ephemeral in form.
Photography Beyond Technique is a compelling selection of essays and images culled from the many excellent presentations given at the ten F295 events that reveal the thoughts and methods of some of today’s most exciting contemporary photographers.
These artists employ alternative, historical, or handmade processes and techniques, and share a comprehensive view of the medium: that the choice of photographic process is just as important as the decisions of content and subject. While other books concentrate solely on process, or theory, or artistic intent, none focus on photography in which these decisions are considered inseparable.
The book includes the following contributors and essays:
• Jo Babcock – One Thousand Invented Cameras • Craig Barber – Memory, Nature, and Place • Stephen Berkman – That Obscura Object of Desire: A Brief History • Laura Blacklow – Imprecise Evidence • Dan Burkholder – There is No Virtue in Difficulty • Martha Casanave – Mystery, Memory, and Narrative • Jill Enfield – Something Extraordinary • Dan Estabrook – Notes on the Art of Failure • Jesseca Ferguson – The Photograph as Reliquary • Alan Greene – Imaginary Whole Plates or, Notes Towards the Reinvention of Photography • James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith – The Evolution of a Collaboration • Robert Hirsch – Looking Backward, Seeing Forward: Reframing Visual History • Robb Kendrick – There is No Command-Z • John Metoyer – Synthesizing Centuries • France Scully Osterman – Sleep • Mark Osterman – Finding Confidence: Combining Process with Purpose • Tom Persinger – Windows • Jerry Spagnoli – Photograph, Material, and Metaphor • Brian Taylor – The Art of Getting Lost • Keith Taylor – In the Dark, Time Feels Different than When it is Light
After more than thirty years as associate curator of photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Christian A. Peterson resigned last year to concentrate on writing about the history of photography and selling out-of-print photography books. He currently has two catalogues online, the first being a general selection from his vast collection while the second concentrates on Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander.
I anticipate issuing about three catalogs a year, usually on particular themes and movements, such as nineteenth-century photography, pictorialism, and the Clarence H. White School.
