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Ed Ruscha & The Two-Sided Coin of Influence

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- Unless otherwise credited.).

This is the third and final part of my look at Ed Ruscha/Now Then. Part 1  is here. Part 2 is here.

1- Heads

One door closed, another opened. Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-8, Oil on canvas, seen at MoMA. Ed Ruscha/Now Then is now open there. Pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click any for full size.

Ed Ruscha/Now Then is a memory for those of us who saw it at MoMA from September 10, 2023 to January 15th of this year. It’s a memory in the making for those who are seeing it now at LACMA, seen above in Ed Ruscha’s 1965-8 nebulous “portrait” of it (which I discussed in Part 1), or will be seeing it until it closes there on October 6th. They’ll be pleased to know it’s a show with staying power, a show I continue to relive and think about on a daily basis, six months after it closed here. After following the trail of his devlopment in Part 1, “Ed Ruscha’s Head Scratchers,” seeing some echoes of the work of Artists past, I began to wonder… Every Artist I’ve come across has had influences. Who influenced Ed Ruscha? As the show was up, and now after it ended here, that question lingered.

Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919, or later. One Artist Ed Ruscha has repeatedly expressed his admiration for is Duchamp, who he met in the early 1960s. There are numerous version of L.H.O.O.Q. since the 1919 original. I chose this one because t contains all the elements of the original, which I cannot find (if you have  let me know)- the mustache, the goatee, and the famous letters all of which Duchamp added to a Mona Lisa postcard. Duchamp once said that L.H.O.O.Q. means “there is fire down below,” though I’ve seen other definitions.  *- Photographer unknown.

“Duchamp had quite a sizable influence on me from a pictorial standpoint and from an emotional standpoint,” Ed Ruscha (Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information After the Signal, P.324).

Ed Ruscha has not written an autobiography, so his book, Leave Any Information After the Signal, a collection of “Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages” from 1960 to 2000 is the closest thing we have to a primary written source. In addition to just looking, I turned to it, along with the numerous other interviews he’s given over his six-decade plus career, for insights.

As seen in Part 1– Encountering Johns’s  Target with Four Faces in a black & white reproduction in a 1957 magazine was, he said, an ‘atomic bomb’ in his training, ‘a stranger fruit’ that he ‘saw as something that didn’t seem to follow the history of art. My teachers said it was not art. ‘I didn’t need to see the colors or the size…’ ‘I was especially taken with the fact that it was symmetrical, which was just absolutely taboo in art school- you didn’t make anything symmetrical…Art school was modernism, it was asymmetry, it was giant brush strokes…it was all these other things that were gestural rather than cerebral. So I began moving to things that had more of a premeditation1.’” Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955, Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surrounded by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front. Seen in Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney in 2021.

Besides naming Duchamp, Jasper Johns and his counterpart Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha hasn’t addressed the subject of influences all that often.

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe), 1929, Oil on canvas. (Not in the show.) *-LACMA Photo

Pondering the visual evidence, the first name that came to mind was Rene Magritte, 1898-1967, a well-known Belgian Artist who also had a long career and touched on a number of subjects Ed Ruscha has, while sharing his fondness for taking the familiar out of context (which Mr. Ruscha does with words, objects and places). He also incorporated words. Though often labelled a “Surrealist,” his work touches on any number of other realms and styles of Painting, which made him ahead of his time. As a result, his influence is extraordinary and ongoing. Time and again, I’d look at an Ed Ruscha, or a section of one, and think “Magritte,” beginning with Actual Size, 1962, which I showed in Part 1, which echoes Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, 1929 better known by the famous words it includes, “This is Not a Pipe2.” The Magritte seems to echo his contemporary, Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q., from 1919.

Salvador Dalí, Open Field with Ball in Centre and Mountains in  Rear, Study for the Walt Disney film Destino, 1948, Oil on masonite, left. Ed Ruscha, Painkillers, Tranquilizers, Olive, 1969, right. (*- Dali from the Dalí & Film MoMA catalog. Ed Ruscha as I saw it in the show.)3.

Of him, Mr. Ruscha said, “Yes, Magritte did influence me, but it came the other way around—what I call 360-degree influence. That’s influence from a person’s thoughts and force and not from his pictures, which the person being influenced has not seen, until later on. The same with Dalí. I’ve been influenced by Dalí, but it’s been through other sources. Because I’ll go back, and I’ll be working on something and I’ll see a picture of Dalí’s I’ve never seen before, and there is my work. (P.56).” I wrote about seeing Dalí in Rauscha in Part 1– before I found that quote.

Surrealism Soaped and Scrubbed, Ed Ruscha’s cover design for Artforum 5, No. 1, Special Issue: Surrealism, September, 1966. 

What about “Surrealism’s” influence, that of the group of European Artists so labelled?

Ed Ruscha was Art Director for Artforum Magazine from 1966-19724. His cover for the September, 1966 “Surrealism” Special Edition I find fascinating, particularly in regards to Ed Ruscha’s Art, overall. While this image has almost nothing to do with “historical Surrealism,” I find it ripe with the “kind” of surrealism (small “s,” which he also uses here) I see in Ed Ruscha’s work, while also being another of his trademarked play on words. There is nothing in “historical Surrealism” that influenced this (as far as I know), and so it’s another work that makes me wonder what, if anything, inspired it. On page 349 of Leave Any Information After the Signal, Mr. Ruscha denies the influence of the Surrealists handling of light on his work. That’s all he has to say about it.

The Back of Hollywood, 1977, Oil on canvas. Was Ed Ruscha the first to Paint words backwards? Probably not.

What about influences on his Word Painting? In After the Signal, he said,  “Well, there’ve been so many artists who have used words throughout the centuries really, but the ones I enjoy are mostly from the twentieth century. Say, Kurt Schwitters. [. . .] 5” On page 115, Paul Karlstrom directly asks Mr. Ruscha,  “Who were your heroes then, your role models?” He replied, “Well, I guess de Kooning was, and Franz Kline. Franz Kline had a lot to say at that particular time, and so they were more or less the passwords. You just emulated them, almost automatically. Then if you couldn’t emulate them you weren’t really on the right track. I still think that. But the work of Johns and Rauschenberg marked a departure in the sense that their work was premeditated.” It sounds like he was referring to his early days as a student under the Abstract Expressionist influenced Chouinard faculty in the late 1950s, as once again, it’s hard for me to see the influence of de Kooning or Kline in Ed Ruscha’s work.

Joan Miró, Photo: This is the Color of My Dreams 1925, Oil on canvas. *- Met Museum Photo

The Surrealists began as a literary “movement,” that experimented with “automatic writing.” Later, their influence spread to Painting. In Miró’s Photo: This is the Color of My Dreams, it comes full circle. Part of the Artist’s “peinture-poésie” (painting-poetry) series, this strikes me as a forerunner or precursor to the Word Paintings of Ed Ruscha. Yet, I have no idea if he saw it, or other works in Mirós series,  or when.

America’s Future, 1977, Oil on canvas. The title is shown in the next picture.

The feeling I’m left with is that these Artists “effected” him in ways outside of a direct visual influence. They are, what I call, “echoes.” What Ed Ruscha called “360 degree” influences. As for the stated influences, in Part 2, I mentioned that Thomas Cole was the influence on Mr. Ruscha’s Course of Empire series, from who he borrowed the name of the series. It seems to me the rest of his influences, if any, remain up for conjecture. Still, taking him at his work on possible influences would leave Ed Ruscha remarkably original.

Detail. Though Painted 18 years before he began his Course of Empire series I showed in Part 2, seeing this made me wonder if this work should be appended to the end of the series, i.e. the final outcome of it.

2- Tails

Turning the influence coin over, however, 67 years, and counting, into one of the most remarkable careers in American Art history, at this moment in time it’s hard to think of another Modern & Contemporary Artist, let alone an American Artist, who is more influential than Ed Ruscha is. In fact, it’s impossible for me to list here all the realms in which his influence can be seen. Those that come to mind the quickest include-

-His role in furthering the breaking of the strangle hold of Abstract Expressionism in Painting in the early 1960s.

-His unique way of incorporating words and typography into his Art.

-His Paintings of L.A. and the American West6.

No place on the planet has more Artist’s books than NYC’s Printed Matter, home of 15 ,000 books they’ve created. How many are/were inspired in part or wholly by Ed Ruscha? I don’t know the total but I keep finding more every time I go in. May 6, 2024.

-His ground-breaking Artist’s books/PhotoBooks. (Is it a stretch to say he’s played a defining role in the Contemporary Artist’s Book & PhotoBook phenomenon? I don’t think so.)

-His style of nonjudgmental roadside and aerial Photography.

-Entire genres of Painting, Photography and books have sprung up around his work.

Jeff Brouws, Various Small Books Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha, 2013. 288 pages of books, and just books, by other Artists influenced by Ed Ruscha, and it’s now 11 years old!

To this point, at least two substantial books, including the book above, have been published focused solely on his influence! All of this is even more impressive (or mind-boggling) when you consider Ed Ruscha is still with us and going strong at 86. Usually, the influence of Artists is something referred to in the past tense.

-His unique way of incorporating words and typography into his Art.

Ed Ruscha’s presence is so pronounced at Printed Matter, they even have a well-worn box just for books he’s influenced. ‘Nuff said. No, that’s not a copy of Mr. Ruscha’s very rare Twentysix Gasoline Stations. It’s Michalis Pincher’s 2009 homage to it, which “borrows” Ruscha’s cover verbatim.

All of this, also, makes it harder to fathom that Ed Ruscha/Now Then was the first large Ed Ruscha show here in 41 years7, and his first show at MoMA! That makes the extent of his influence that much more impressive. Suffice it to say it’s a lot easier to see Ed Ruscha’s influence than it might be to see the influence of others on his work.is so pronounced.

The saddest moment of the entire 4 month run of Ed Ruscha/ Now Then: the show’s entrance, moments after it closed for the last time on January 15, 2024. I saw it on its first preview day, and I was there when it closed for good. Shows are fugacious events. The ending of a great show is always sad; like saying “goodbye” to a friend. One you’ll never see again.

-Takeaways

In addition to providing an opportunity to ponder the scope of his influence, Now Then provides the chance to assess his achievement and his place among the important Artists of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Ed Ruscha strikes me as an Artist who is continually moving forward to the point that he is a seemingly endless innovator. Ed Ruscha/Now Then provided a rare chance to see the craft behind the mystery his work evokes; to watch the Artist move on an almost step-by-step basis from his beginnings though each of his phases, with a focus on his recurring themes and his innovations.

Yet, he’s also an Artist who’s extremely aware of his, and our, pasts, and his Art stays in touch with it often in surprising ways. Ed Ruscha has never stood still long enough to have any box his work gets put in fit for very long. The Ed Ruscha box is the only one that fits an Artist as extraordinarily diverse as Mr. Ruscha has been and continues to be. Ed Ruscha/Now Then is a show that will live long in memory, and no doubt, influence.

Part 1 of my look at Ed Ruscha/Now Then is here. Part 2 is here.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is  “Goodnight My Love,” as performed by Paul Anna. In 2017, MOCA commissioned a short documentary on two themes in Ed Ruscha’s work (the text of which is here). In the resulting piece, Ed Ruscha says, “I’m gonna play this tune called ‘Goodnight My Love’ and this represents everrything I felt about California when I first came out here…” Because he doesn’t specify which recording he’s going to play, I chose the Paul Anka version from 1969.

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  1. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  2. I cannot think of Rene Magritte without thinking of the singular Photographer, Duane Michals. When I met him, I quickly shifted the chat from Photography to Painting. He rightly gloated over the fact that he had met and Photographed his three favorite Painters- Balthus, Giorgio de Chirico, and Rene Magritte, with who he did a terrific PhotoBook, that he graciously signed for me. All three are under-appreciated in my book, and remain among my favorites, too. ↩
  3. In spite of being among the best known, in my view, Dalí may be the most under-appreciated Artist of the 20th century, as anyone who saw the incredible Salvador Dalí Centennial Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum in 2005 knows. It’s partially his own fault, as the endless fantastic stunts he put on overshadows the appreciation of his Art in my opinion. History will eventually fix that, I believe. ↩
  4. Alexandra Schwartz, P.35 ↩
  5. Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information After the Signal, P. 324 ↩
  6. Along with those of, and quite different from,Georgia O’Keeffe. ↩
  7. As I mentioned in Part 1, the last big Ed Ruscha show here was the traveling retrospective, The Works of Ed Ruscha, which came to the Whitney Museum in 1982! ↩

Ed Ruscha’s Wall Rockets

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

This is Part 2 of my look at Ed Ruscha/Now Then at MoMA. Part 1 is here, Part 3 is here.

From the late 1950s, through the early 1960s Ed Ruscha made regular trips back and forth between Oklahoma City, where he grew up, and L.A., his adopted home since the late 1950s. In 19621, he Photographed the gas stations that caught his eye on these journeys with his trusty Yashika Twin-reflex camera, taking 60 or 70 Photographs2. In an interview in 1973 he said, “What used to belong to the Navaho and Apache Indians now belongs to the white man and he’s got gas stations out there. So, I started seeing it as cultural curiosities.”

“I’d always wanted to make a book of some kind.”

He continues. “When I was in Oklahoma I got a brainstorm in the middle of the night to do this little book called Twentysix Gasoline Stations. I knew the title. I knew it would be photographs of twenty-six gasoline stations3.” “The first book came out of a play with words. The title came before I even thought about the pictures. I like the word ‘gasoline’ and I like the specific quality of ‘twenty-six4.'”  “Months went into the planning of that. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by loosening up. You know, not gotten so concerned with how I wanted the thing to look. I changed the form about fifty times at the printer’s5.” He self-published Twentysix Gasoline Stations in 1963 (although the title page states 1962).

You’re looking at a revolution. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963, revolutionized the Artist book, the PhotoBook, and street-side Phtography, with unique design, turning gas station Photography into a genre in the process. This copy was hanging for visitors to peruse, which was somewhat surprising as it’s now a rare book- even this second edition copy is worth hundreds of dollars. Knowing all of it from reproductions, this was the first time I was able to page through an actual copy of it. Pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click on any for full size.

It’s an Artist’s book/PhotoBook whose influence is now incalculable.

Published in an edition of 400 copies, a case can be made that it ‘s the most influential PhotoBook of the contemporary period after Robert Frank’s The Americans (which the Artist acknowledges as an influence). Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with its “industrial” look and feel stood at odds with the frequently hand-made Artist’s book norm to the time. Virtually every aspect of the Artist’s book was reimagined, from the typography and text layout on the cover to the sparseness of the interior contents, with a lack of text save for image titles.

Believe it or not, this is one of the most influential Photographs in Modern & Contemporary Photography. STANDARD, ARMADILLO, TX, perhaps the key image in Twentysix Gasoline Stations, went on to have multiple lives of its own, inspiring numerous Ed Ruscha Paintings, Drawings & Prints, as well as the work of other Artists.

Speaking of the end result, he said-

“I realized that for the first time this book had an inexplicable thing I was looking for, and that was a kind of a “Huh?” That‘s what I’ve always worked around. All it is is a device to disarm somebody with my particular message6.”

Having immersed myself in PhotoBooks for the past 7 years, and Art books most of my life, it’s impossible for me to overstate the influence Twentysix Gasoline Stations has had, and continues to have, on the Art world. It turned Art & PhotoBook creation and publishing on its head, rewriting what a book could be and who could make one. He’s said he meant the pictures to be “like a collection of readymades7,” a term and genre Marcel Duchamp put on the Art map. Still, it received a mixed reaction when it was released, including famously being rejected by the Library of Congress.

Standard Station, Amarillo, TX, 1963, Oil on canvas, 64 15/16 x 121 13/16 inches. The “locomotive” compositional device, seen in Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, in Part 1, returns, splitting the composition in two, just the beginning of what’s fascinating about this.

“I would say I came to painting through photography,” Ed Ruscha8

The STANDARD, ARMADILLO, TX, Photograph begat the Standard Station, Amarillo, TX Painting in 1963. Obviously, the Photo just shown has been reworked, reimagined, or he based this on another Photo. Whatever the case may be, the resulting composition seen here would subsequently take many forms and become iconic. Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half, below, followed a year later.The Paintings begat Standard Station, Amarillo, TX Prints, with Standard Station, Amarillo, TX Drawings being created along the way. So ubiquitous did they become that gas station Paintings and gas station Photography are now, basically, his genres. Sooner or later, everyone who shoots or Paints a gas station is going to be compared to Ed Ruscha. Many, like Vik Muniz, openly acknowledge the influence.

What strikes me are the abstract elements, like the selective detailing- you can read the prices on the gas pumps, but detail disappears on everything behind them, creating a surreal experience (the “realistic” gas pumps offset against the featureless building behind them), under that big red sign whose white lettering, offset against the engulfing darkness, feels bold.

Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half, 1964, Oil on canvas, 65 x 121 1/2 inches. Mr. Ruscha has likened  the comic flying off the canvas to the upper right to a “coda” in Music. For me, it looks like debris, garbage, pollution. In this piece, the featureless building has light and shadows added to it. Once again, the numbers and text on the gas pumps are very legible.

At the time, Ed Ruscha shot them, gas stations were bastions of the new found freedom of the open road and the catalyst of the massive post-war westward exodus that the Artist, himself, became a part of. Over time, gas stations would be seen differently as the toll of pollution and environmental decay mounted.

Ed Ruscha’s second most famous Artist book/PhotoBook. A copy of the legendary Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, published in one long accordion fold. Ed Ruscha put a tripod on the back of a truck and went up and down Sunset Strip taking one Photo after another until he had shot every building on both sides of the street. Here, we get one direction on the top of the page, with what’s across the street synchronized and mirrored along the bottom.

Further books followed- 14 more to 1972, the most famous of which is Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, another ground-breaking work. Ed Ruscha has stated that part of the reason he went west after high school, instead of east, was because of the glamour of L.A. Here, he shows the “glamour” of the famous Sunset Strip in all its “glory.” Then, in 1973, he shot all 12 miles of Hollywood Blvd. In 2004, he reshot Hollywood Blvd in color, and paired with the 1972 images, they became the book THEN & NOW in 2005. It’s one example of Ed Ruscha combining his love of the effects of time with revisiting his past subjects.

In all the acclaim he receives I almost never hear credit given the Artist for his exceptional Painting technique- the equal of anyone else’s of his time. Right from the start, Painting after Painting reveals sublime subtlety and under-appreciated skill.  Then Now provided a glorious chance to study his, often large, Paintings up close and marvel at his skill and taste. It also provides the extremely rare chance to see works of the same subject side by side, particularly two of his famous Standard Gasoline Station Paintings.

Shows present once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to see great works united from distant parts of the globe for a brief time. That’s why I waited over an hour for the crowds to part to get this shot. More than likely, I’ll never see these two great Standard Stations together again. Both of these also feature the “speeding locomotive” compositional device seen in the Large Trademark Painting, which adds to the somewhat surreal overall effect, wonder and mystery.

Further to the Large Trademark Painting, Ed Ruscha also began Painting the sights of L.A., which again seems to be his domain to the point that I can’t think of anyone who Painted the city before he did. (I’m sure there were. Right?)

“Being in Los Angeles has had little or no effect on my work. I could have done it anywhere.” Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information at the Signal, Statement in “West Coast Style”

Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-8, 53 1/2 x 133. 1/2 inches. Fun fact- Guess where Ed Ruscha/Now Then reopened on April 7, 2024 after closing at MoMA? You’re looking at it.

Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-8, like most of Ed Ruscha’s work, has been the subject of endless conjecture. Over the years, the Artist has made a few statements about it, including this one, “… There’s no great message here. It’s just a picture to look at9.” That might be hard to believe. After graduating college, he took that trip to Europe I mentioned in Part 1, and came away disappointed at the lack of Contemporary Art on view in the museums. Back home, things weren’t much better. Contemporary Art was slow to gain admission to the hallowed halls of institutions here. Is it a stretch to think this was somewhere on his mind when he Painted this? I tend to think it was in there somewhere. The Watts riots had recently taken place. The Now Then Catalogue has this to say about it-

“Ruscha’s characteristic denial of content ignores the fact that not far from his studio in mid-August 1965, just a few months after the inauguration of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the city of Los Angeles was burning10.”

Ed Ruscha said, “The plain truth behind the Watts riots is that the riots themselves were good and beneficial and healthy regardless of loss of life. The Watts riots nationalized sympathy for a gigantic racial injustice11.”

He soon set a number of other sites on fire in his Paintings, including the an Amarillo Standard Station (which wasn’t in the show), and Norm’s, which was.

Norm’s, La Cienega, on Fire, 1964, Oil and pencil on canvas. The work features a complete lack of detail, save for the letters “ORMS” on the sign.  It’s interesting how the flames follow the “locomotive” line. Without those letters (which themselves are meaningless without the title), this Painting would be a completely abstract composition of shapes and lines.

For someone who’s so closely associated with L.A., and has been for over 60 years, it’s strange that some of his most well-known work shows L.A. landmarks being destroyed or in ruins. For example, he has continued to “destroy” the Hollywood sign, in different ways, over and over again throughout his career. Still, his fame continued to rise as did his association with the city. In spite of all this (and possibly because of it), in 1978, a six-story(!) tall mural (also referred to as the “Ed Ruscha Monument”) of the Artist was created by the Artist Kent Twitchell, for who Ed Ruscha was “the unorthodox hero of the art world.” Would anyone else be able to “destroy” a city’s landmarks and then become seen as the figurehead of that city’s Art community with a monument created for them? It didn’t happen for Nero. Unlike the emperor, Ed Ruscha didn’t actually destroy anything, except maybe in his mind and on some large canvases.

Rancho, 1968, Oil on canvas, which looks like it was made with a liquid, surrounded by Fire, Sin, Rustic Pines, each 1967, Gunpowder on paper, from left to right.

This calls to mind another thing Ed Ruscha doesn’t get enough credit for: innovation. In the 3rd, 4th and 5th galleries we see pieces made out of strange and unprecedented materials. Unhappy with the possibilities of paint or pencil, the Artist began exploring the possibilities of Drawing with gunpowder! The results, as seen above, are incredible. He found he had more control with it. In 1969, the Artist began going further, using unconventional materials in his Stains Portfolio of seventy-five substances ranging from L.A. tap water to egg yolk.

Installation view of Chocolate Room, 1971/2023, Chocolate on paper sheets.

His Chocolate Room for the United States Pavilion at the 1970 Venice Biennale, and recreated in a room of its own in Now Then, followed. After that, he began using a number of these “other” materials in his Word and Phrase Paintings.

Cotton Puffs, 1974. Egg yolk on moiré fabric, 36 × 40″

Along with this constant experimentation came the inevitable failure, like the egg yokes in Cotton Puffs, 1974, fading quickly. Ed has been remarkably cool with these. Accepting them for what they are12. (And probably learning in the process.) Each has its place in his oeuvre, with all the examples on view seeming to hold up remarkably well over the years given they are experiments. By the mid-70s, he had gone back to pastel on paper13. Though the materials experiments were short-lived, it led me to peruse the 7 volumes of the Ed Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, published by Steidl (which is a bit ironic- or fitting- because Steidl has published the work of any number of Photographers who include gas stations in their work, including the entirety of the 3-volume set, Gas Stop, by David Freund), which revealed that this insatiable exploration of materials was only the tip of his creativity iceberg. Paging through it (which only goes up to 2011 at this point), I was amazed to discover that though he has created a number of works with ostensibly the same subject, no two are identical. The differences are obvious or subtle. Still, this speaks to Ed Ruscha’s seemingly endless powers of invention and refusal to repeat himself verbatim. I was stunned when I discovered this, which was completely unexpected (though I should have been tipped off by what his STANDARD STATION, ALBUQUERQUE Photograph became). Seeing this range and variety gave me a glimpse of insight into just what may be keeping him going and creating since the late 1950s.

Wall Rockets, 2000, Acrylic on canvas

Perhaps THE highlight of Ed Ruscha/Now Then at MoMA for me was the chance to see 6 of the 10 Paintings from the Artist’s Course of Empire series. As I’ve looked at his work over the past 24 years of this century, these have fascinated me as much as any other work by Mr. Ruscha. Created for, and then debuted, at the 2005 Venice Biennalle, they subsequently travelled to NYC where they were on display at the Whitney in a show of the same name, the last important (though small) Ed Ruscha show in NYC until Now Then. Somehow, I missed them there, so seeing 6 might be as close as I get to seeing them all.

3 works from Ed Ruscha’s Blue Collar series, 1993, on the 3 facing walls.

Occupying the large, penultimate gallery of the show, the Course of Empire Paintings strike me as serving as a touchstone for a number of Ed Ruscha themes. They also eerily presage what has been going on in much of NYC (and perhaps elsewhere) this decade, with a number of stores and businesses closing due to Covid, then more closing due to the realities of our post-Covid (if we are post-Covid) economy, many have changed hands in a short time. Others remain for rent. The shape, perspectives and lack of detailing on the one-story  buildings I find reminiscent of Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half, seen earlier. In each, our point of view is the same, and the same as in that Standard Station Painting- they are seen from below.

At the opposite end of the gallery, the same scenes reappear in his Course of Empire series, 2005, now in color, though right and left are flipped. (The scene on the right wall is that depicted on the left wall in Blue Collar Photo, above this one. The scene on the left wall is the scene shown on the right wall of the Blue Collar series above this one.)

The series evolved over a period of 13 years, with Ed Ruscha Painting the 5 black & white pieces, titled Blue Collar, in 1992-

Blue Collar Trade School, 1992, Acrylic on canvas. The only multi-story structure in the series.

Returning to the subject and the same sites  in 2005, this time in color and showing the effects of time passing.

The Old Trade School Building, 2005, Acrylic on canvas

Perhaps, his most subtly powerful series, their under-stated compositions lead to open-ended interpretations.

Installation view of the complete Course of Empire, by Thomas Cole, 1834-36, as seen at The Met’s Thomas Cole’s Journey in 2018. The rise and fall of civilization as seen from the same place, with the same distinctive mountain peak appearing in each Painting.

Based on, and in homage to, Thomas Cole’s legendary Course of Empire series, 1834-6, (which I wrote about here), they are another instance of Ruscha revisiting earlier work, his Blue Collar series from 1992. These also highlight that alongside the humor in any number of his pieces, running parallel, is a real depth of concern. Concern for the country, the world, the environment.

Psycho Spaghetti Western #7, 2010-11, Acrylic on canvas

“It’s all just rape of the land for profit these days. It’s fairly sick. Southern California is all just one big city now. But what do you say about progress? … So something’s got to give, and the landscape’s the first thing that gives….There is a certain flavor of decadence that inspires me. And when I drive into some sort of industrial wasteland in America, with the themeparks and warehouses, there’s something saying something to me. It’s a mixture of those things that gives me some sense of reality and moves me along as an artist,” Ed Ruscha 14.

Taking full advantage of having such a long career, the Artist has revisited past themes, and places, fairly often to the point that it’s a running theme in his work. Change over time…for the better, or worse, is left to the viewer to decide. Ostensibly set in L.A., the structures in Blue Collar/Course of Empire could be literally anywhere. As such they have a universality to them (as do a number of other 21st century Ruscha’s) that sets them apart from his purely L.A. work, like his Hollywood sign pieces.

Our Flag, 2017, Acrylic on canvas. The last work in the show.

Thomas Cole influencing Ed Ruscha’s Blue Collar & Course of Empire series started me thinking about other possible influences on his work. I touched on some in Part 1. In Part 3, I’ll take a closer look at them, and then flip that coin over.

Part 3 is here. 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “L.A. Woman” by The Doors, one of the ultimate L.A. bands, from the 1971 album of the same name. (Narrowly beating out “California Girls” by the Beach Boys from Summer Days (And Summer Nights), 1965.) Ed Ruscha was into “car culture” before moving to L.A., and after, among other things he has in common with the #1 L.A. band of its time. Notice the gas station Jim Morrison, “another lost angel,” to quote his lyric, stops in to about half way through-

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  1. Ed Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, Vol 7, P.476 ↩
  2. E.R., Tate, P.30 ↩
  3. Willoughby Sharp, ‘“… a kind of a Huh?”, An Interview with Edward Ruscha’, Avalanche, no.7, Winter/ Spring 1973, p.30. ↩
  4. ER, Tate, P. 31 ↩
  5. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edward-ruscha-1882/ed-ruscha-and-art-everyday ↩
  6. Here. ↩
  7. Reading Ed Ruscha, P.50 ↩
  8. Ed Ruscha, Photographer, P.7 ↩
  9. Ed Ruscha quoted in Ed Ruscha/Now Then Exhibition Catalog, P.21 ↩
  10. Ed Ruscha/Now Then Exhibition Catalog, P.21 ↩
  11. Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information at the Signal, P.5 ↩
  12. E.R., Tate, P.65 ↩
  13. Ed Ruscha/Now Then, P.170 ↩
  14. Leave Any Information at the Signal, P.18 ↩

Ed Ruscha’s Head Scratchers

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Show seen: Ed Ruscha/Now Then @MoMA

Who doesn’t like the Art of Ed Ruscha?

Installation view of the entrance, September 14, 2023. Images in this piece are thumbnails. Click any picture for full size.

Walking through the crowds at MoMA’s winter blockbuster, Ed Ruscha/Now Then over my six long visits bookending a terrible, six-week illness, I saw smiles as visitors moved from piece to piece, yet I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them felt they “understood” his Art. While humor undoubtedly plays a part in the craft of an Artist who knows you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, however they appear at first glance, his work usually leaves me scratching my head.

Returning to look at it again and again, that his work says something different to me every time I look at it has kept Ed Ruscha among my favorite Contemporary Artists. Judging from the turnout at MoMA, I’m far from alone in that. Having the chance to explore, and be mystified by, 200 pieces of his Art in Now Then from the, approximately, SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS(!) he’s been making it proved an all-too-rare chance to take a good hard look and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I Don’t Want No Retro Spective, 1979, Pastel on paper. The catalog for the last Ed Rusha retrospective in 1982(!) is also known by the Ruscha on the cover of its catalog, I Don’t Want No Retro Spective, though the show’s title was THE WORKS OF ED RUSCHA. 

“All too rare,” as in Now Then is the first Ed Ruscha retrospective here since 1982, (and so mine, too): over FORTY YEARS ago!1 The gap between them is another head scratcher given how popular Ed Ruscha’s Art is. The title Ed Ruscha/Now Then can be taken as a reference to the Artist’s penchant for revisiting his subjects over time, as well as the fact the show includes old and recent work, or a chance to see his older work now. It’s also a rare retrospective of a West Coast Artist who came to prominence in the 1960s mounted on the East Coast. Bruce Conner didn’t live to see his at MoMA like Ed Ruscha has. Ed Kienholz, and Mr. Conner’s friend, Jay DeFeo, among others, are still waiting for their East Coast retrospective.

Installation view from just inside the entrance of the first gallery looking into the second. Boss, 1961, the famous Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, and the infamous OOF, 1962-3, left to right, all Oil on canvas.

Walking through it, I became particularly fascinated by how his style(s) developed, and how Edward Joseph Ruscha IV became Ed Ruscha, one of the most influential Artists in the world among Modern & Contemporary Artists, if not THE most influential, at this point in time.

Oklahoma-E, 1962, Pencil, colored pencil and charcoal on paper

Born in Omaha in 1937, his family moved to Oklahoma City when Ed was 5. Early on, he had a passion for comics and a love of typography, particularly as it appeared in commercial publications. All of these are combined in Oklahoma-E from 1962, a seminal year in his early career. His initial desire was to become a Commercial Artist, and it was towards that end that he left OKC after graduating high school to head to L.A. with a friend in a lowered 1950 Ford, to study it. He chose to go west rather than east because of its energy, glamour, and its “hot rods and custom cars2.” Unable to get into his chosen school, he was accepted at Chouinard Art Institute (later Cal Arts, where Henry Taylor would study in the 1990s). His teachers, disciples of Abstract Expressionism, “wanted to collapse the whole art process into one act3.’’ “It (Abstract Expressionism) was, in his opinion, ‘a solid way of thinking…If you think about the paintings that were done in the 1950s, I find them overwhelming, nothing but quality…It was a very powerful time in art.’ However, ‘…within AbEx there was no room for my ideas4.'” While this frustrated him, they did succeed in getting him to change his focus from Commercial Art to Fine Art, which we can all be grateful for. After Now Then, I wonder if they accomplished more.

While in school in 1957 he had an epiphany.

One of the most extraordinary works of the 1950s. Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955, Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surrounded by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front. Seen in Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney in 2021.

“The breakthrough he sought came in 1957, when he spotted a small black-and-white repro of Jasper Johns’s 1955 Target with Four Faces in the Feb/Mar 1957 issue of Print Magazine. Encountering Johns’s painting was, he said, an ‘atomic bomb’ in his training, ‘a stranger fruit’ that he ‘saw as something that didn’t seem to follow the history of art. My teachers said it was not art. ‘I didn’t need to see the colors or the size…’ ‘I was especially taken with the fact that it was symmetrical, which was just absolutely taboo in art school- you didn’t make anything symmetrical…Art school was modernism, it was asymmetry, it was giant brush strokes…it was all these other things that were gestural rather than cerebral. So I began moving to things that had more of a premeditation5.’”

Dvision, 1962, Mimeograph on paper, One of five Prints by five Artists in the Portfolio issued in conjunction with the New Painting of Common Objects show.

That has continued to this day. Along the way, he and others (including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist), built on what Johns, Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp had started: the “next thing” after Abstract Expressionism, an Art based in the recognizable, the familiar, the every day. Some called it “pop.” Personally, I see nothing but danger in trying to box Ed Ruscha (who has consistently eschewed boxes).

In fact, one word comes to my mind over and over again as I look at his Art over time: abstract. If I were going to use two words to describe it they would be “premeditated abstraction.” Look at Division, above. It contains what would become Ed Ruscha trademarks- text, typography, and images, combined in a way that are next to impossible for most viewers to “read.” If that’s not “abstract?” What is? Maybe his teachers would be proud after all. It was only through delving into his history, I found that 3327 Division Street was the address of his first L.A. studio6. The car might have been his. Does that mean there’s more of a backstory to it? I haven’t found it. In the end, for me this says there may, or may not, be personal meaning to some/many/even all of his Art, but, 60+ years on, they haven’t come to light. So, with Division, as with all his Art, the viewer is left to make of them what they will.

The two earliest piece in the show, SU, 1958, Oil, ink and fabric on canvas, (sixty-six years old!), left, with Dublin,, 1960, Oil and ink on canvas, right. Yes, a comma is part of the title.

Before graduating, he took hitchhiking trips that he immortalized in some of the earliest works in the show. the mysterious SU, 1958, the earliest, strikes me as a forerunner of what would come later. Even in these early works, text and imagery appear, though separately, as different elements that seem to stand apart from each other until the viewer brings them together, or creates a narrative around them, in his or her mind. These elements have continued in his work to this day, though he would soon start layering them. SU is, also, one of the relatively few of his works that refers to an actual person, the title referring to Su Hall, his girlfriend at the time.

Actual Size, 1962, Oil on canvas, 67 1/16 x 72 1/16 inches. His breakthrough work when it was included in the landmark New Paintings of Common Objects show. A Painted, flaming, “actual size” can of Spam in its lower section is accompanied by some brush marks that might be associated with Abstract Expressionism. In fact, a number of his early pieces, like Three Standard Envelopes, 1960, also include them. Given his prodigious technique, on display in this, I don’t see how these marks can be considered accidental. Jennifer Quick7 surmises these connote AbEx’s commercialization. I see them as Ruscha making this technique his own, using it in a way none of the AbEx Artists did. I also see it as an early example of the many forms that abstraction would take in his work.

A number of his early works are quite edgy, daring and ripe with a surprisingly loose use of the brush. Were these done for class to please his teachers, or…? In fact, even some later pieces, like his Stains portfolio, contains marks that seem right out of AbEx. These stands at the other end of the technical spectrum for an Artist who possesses a superb Painting technique, something he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for in my view. They also make me wonder if his AbEx disciple teachers had a bigger effect on their student than it might seem.

The rest of the gallery includes highlights of his early 1960s Word Paintings. We watch as he continued to strip away excess and refine his concept. Eventually, single words appeared alone on solid backgrounds This is interesting because he has said of his recent phrase Paintings that the backgrounds are simply that. Early on, as in Actual Size, they appear to be more.

Vienna, Austria, 1961. This striking Photo was in a vitrine in the show, which prevented my getting a decent picture. This image of it comes from the book Ed Ruscha and Photography, P.48

After  he graduated college, Ed spent 10 months on an extensive tour of Europe. While he reports not being impressed with the museums (among other things, he was disappointed by the lack of Contemporary Art), he took note of quite a bit of what he saw while out and about, particularly the street signs, with their foreign words, different design & typographies. He Drew and Painted a number of these, but he also put the new Yashica twin-lens reflex camera he was required to get in one of his classes to good use, taking a number of interesting Photos, beginning a revolutionary career in the medium in the process. Back home in fall, 1961, he set to work. Less than a year later his work was included in the landmark show, New Paintings of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum, along with that of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud and others, and so-called “pop” Art was born. Ed Ruscha has consistently rejected being boxed, though he rode on the coattails of the “movement,” and the word is still used in describing his work, ignoring the visual evidence.

The first gallery concludes with an infamous work. Does this look familiar?

Ummm…It might not be what you might think it is. It’s a detail of the center of the target in Jasper Johns’s, Target with Four Faces, 1955, shown earlier. Now, look at this-

Yes! One of the two “Os” in Ed Ruscha’s OOF, 1962 (reworked 1963). Just five years after he saw Target with Four Faces, Ed Ruscha Painted the above. Coincidence? Homage? Fallout from that “atomic bomb going off in my training?” My feeling is the visual evidence is pretty strong for making a case for any or all three.

Hello! I’ve never appeared on NighthawkNYC over its 8 1/2 years, except in my self-portrait in the Banner (and a picture in my last piece, here, from the distant past). Until now. I’m introducing myself to NHNYC readers in front of a Painting I have a personal connection to: OOF, 1962-3, Oil on canvas, 71 1/2 x 67 inches on Ed Ruscha/Now Then’s final day, January 15, 2024. As for my “personal connection” to OOF? Very, very few know. My thanks to the lady who graciously agreed to take this.

Personally, it’s hard for me not to think there’s an influence; in the colors, the shape of the circle/”Os.” Even if it’s subconscious. Looking at both of these works now, they’re both revolutionary in their way. The Johns has been discussed at length over the past 60 years. Does anyone else think OOF is a revolutionary work, let alone a masterpiece? I believe it’s both. Revolutionary? It’s possibly the first time (as far as I know) that a Painting features a “word” that Merriam-Webster categorizes as an “interjection,” and not an actual “word” per se. I also believe it’s an “alt masterpiece.” Seriously. The composition, colors, font, placement of the text are all perfect, belying Ed Ruscha’s mastery of typography and graphic design, with the sublime taste that would be a hallmark of his work. OOF stands as the pinnacle of his early word Paintings in my view. Oof is a word, if it is one, that defies concrete understanding, making it a perfect (unofficial) conclusion of sorts to the series. Merriam-Webster says Oof is an interjection “used to express discomfort, surprise, or dismay8.” They point out “the first known use of the word was in 1777,” which I find hilarious. How do they know? Did they consult an Oofologist? They further define an interjection as “an ejaculatory utterance usually lacking grammatical connection9.”

Oof!

OOF everywhere around town. A first step to a better world! I yelled “OOF,” but he didn’t stop.

As such it seems to me that OOF stands as an outlier among the single words Ed Ruscha chose as the subjects of his early 1960s Word Paintings (BOSS, HONK, ACE, SMASH, FLASH and NOISE, shown below, et al) because it is quite abstract, and therefore, a jumping off point for what was to come. I wish I had asked viewers what the Painting said to them. Having owned it for 61 years, MoMA is well aware of its mysterious appeal. No doubt that is why the museum chose to emblazon OOF all around town as the focus of their show marketing.

Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963, Oil and wax on canvas, 71 1/4 x 67 inches. There are two Painted pencils in the piece, and lo and behold someone left another one on the floor, behind the left stanchion. I resisted the urge to move it for effect for this picture. Maybe, I should have…

Along with abstraction, it seems to me there are surreal elements in his work. Perhaps no single word Painting has these abstract/surreal qualities than Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963, which also represents an evolution. Ed Ruscha has long considered it one of his best Paintings[3, Per the wall card.]. In it, the mystery of the word is added to with three very realistic images, close to its own edge. Unusual for a Painting, or Art, it leaves the center, the focus of most Art, empty except for the background color. Most of the previous Word Paintings centered the featured word. As such, it’s both unique and a precursor of other works that combine words and images. It’s also both abstract, thought it depicts realistic objects, and surreal. If I read it from the left, the whole pencil lies quietly seemingly in mid-air. The word “NOISE,” another monosyllabic word, grows until it reaches the right side (again, like a speeding train) where it hovers above the broken pencil. The cheap western seems to be hovering in the air, too, like the left-hand pencil, where it wouldn’t make noise until it lands, which it might be close to doing. The Artist has created “action” from three still objects and a word.

In the catalog for that last major Ruscha retrospective there’s this-

“The broken pencil calls to mind the incident Ruscha has referred to a number of times in interviews when as a child in parochial school he was regularly rapped on the knuckles with a pencil by a nun who caught him misbehaving in class. Is the pencil, then, simultaneously a symbol of expression and repression10?”

If this is the case, though Mr. Ruscha has not said that this incident is what’s depicted here, my reading of it wonders if the “Cheap Western,” i.e. the comic book which appears to be reaching the bottom of the piece, was struck from his hand when he was caught reading it in class, being a big fan of comics at this age, the broken pencil having been cracked over his hand. It’s also, simultaneously, an abstract and a surreal composition. As many have pointed out, it also leaves the center bare. It carries forward his use of the single word, while also taking it on a new tangent.

Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969, (not in the show) has much in common with Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western from six years earlier. One of countless Ed Ruschas that feel surreal to me. Here, he “sugar coats” the surrealism by using harmless objects like marbles and an apple on a welcoming green background. Leaving the olive, the looming black, and the fact that the marbles & apple are bouncing to stir up our imaginations, making the work decidedly not a “still life.” *- Photographer unknown.

Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western is another one-Painting revolution, like OOF was. Though both were only followed-up indirectly, as in Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969. Now, look at this-

Salvador Dali, the legendary Surrealist, Open Field with Ball in Centre and Mountains in Rear, Study for the Disney film Destino, 1946, Oil on masonite. Influence? Seen in MoMA’s catalog for their show Dali & Film.

Works like Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western and Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive (and other works that include marbles and olives) are so different from anything that’s come before in his work. Yet, as time went on, they are joined by many works that while they depict recognizable objects are very abstract, even surreal, including his recent Tom Sawyer Paintings. Most of them have no words, and taken as a group they now form a sizable part of his oeuvre. For my part, I trace them all back to Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western from 1963.

Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, Oil on canvas 66 9/10 x 133 1/10 inches. An early L.A.-inspired work, like most of Ed Ruscha’s work its “meaning” is nebulous. At the time he Painted this, the famous Film studio was in decline and going through layoffs. One reading might be a comment on fleeting fame about to fade out, or like his PhotoBook, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, possibly a hard realization for the Artist who relocated from Oklahoma City, that glamour is not all it appears to be from afar. It’s also a work that is reminiscent of a speeding, approaching train, a compositional device he would use again. Though it’s described as “Oil on canvas,” those are graphite lines leading to or from the vanishing point.

In 1962, L.A./Hollywood, its sites and culture began appearing in Ed Ruscha’s Art, as in Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, which is also a precursor to his multi-word and phrase Paintings. Over the succeeding 60+ years, few if any, Artists would become more associated with Los Angeles than Ed Ruscha is and has been. From then to now, he would continue to Paint the city, and words and image would coexist in his Art, while single words largely became multiple words and, beginning in 1973, short phrases that he has continued to create to this day.

By the beginning of the second gallery of Now Then, some of the core themes of his work have been created and have already metamorphosized. This revealed the development of a working process based in an endlessly restless creative drive that would not let Ed Ruscha stay in one place for very long Artistically. What lay ahead over the next six plus decades(!) has been nothing if not the continually unexpected.

Part 2, “Ed Ruscha’s Wall Rockets,” is here. The concluding Part 3, “Ed Ruscha & The Two-Sided Coin of Influence,” is here. 

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Down the Highway,” by a Musician who has been creating and performing for about as long as Ed Ruscha has: Bob Dylan, born May 24, 1941, 3 1/2 years after Ed Ruscha. Bob released “Down the Highway” the same year Mr. Ruscha created a number of the Paintings in this piece, on 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

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You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. The traveling retrospective, THE WORKS OF ED RUSCHA, came to the Whitney Museum in 1982, one of five museum stops it made, when the Artist was about 45. ↩
  2. ER, Tate, P. 9 ↩
  3. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.17 ↩
  4. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  5. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  6. E.R. Tate, P.100 ↩
  7. in her book, Ed Ruscha: Art & Design in the 1960s ↩
  8. Here ↩
  9. Here ↩
  10. I Don’t Want No Retrospective- The Works of Ed Ruscha, P.15 ↩

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2023: Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

The slide projectors showing Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency at MoMA in 2016-17. *-MoMA Photo. Click any photo for full size.

“What becomes a legend?” someone used to ask. I wouldn’t know. If the question becomes “Who becomes a legend?,” it seems to me that Nan Goldin is just about there. Having recently being named the Art World’s “Most Influential Figure” in the ArtReview Power 100 on top of the Academy Award Nominated Best Documentary she was the subject of, she’s long been one of the most influential Photographers working today- especially on other Photographers. When I think of all the those I’ve spoken with who named influences, her name surfaced as often as anyone else’s1. Yet, one of her most influential realms and biggest innovations, the Slideshow, has gone largely overlooked historically to this point. In her Slideshows and Films, Nan Goldin presents her work as she wants it seen and experienced.

A sealed copy of the now sold out First Edition with the cover showing a projection.

In 2022, the Artist collaborated with Moderna Museet, Stockholm on a retrospective of her 5 Slideshows and 2 Films titled Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well, a traveling show that began at Moderna Museet in October, 2022, and will be touring in Europe until it finishes in Milan in 2025. Accompanying the show, Ms. Goldin, the Moderna Museet and Steidl have released a book of the same name, with the Artist commissioning the majority of the 20 texts included in it. Published in October, 2022, copies didn’t show up here until early 2023, then the first edition promptly sold out. A second went into print last month- 13 months after the first, the fastest recent PhotoBook reprint I can think of this side of Petra Collins’s Coming of Age, and a testament to Nan Goldin’s popularity.

“I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
Yeah, oh
I recommend walkin’ around naked in your living room
Yeah”-*

Early posters for what was called Ballads of Sexual Dependency at the time. From Nan Goldin’s collection. Seen at MoMA in March, 2017.

Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well is a unique PhotoBook in my experience. Of all the PhotoBooks I’ve seen I can’t think of one that is largely drawn from Slideshows (5 of the 7 works included). That’s probably because very few Artists not named William Kentridge, or any Photographers I can think of, have done a body of them. Mr. Kentridge’s largely consist of his remarkable Drawings and, longer or shorter, are more usually considered Films. Between the covers, the book is gripping. The narratives the Slideshows & Films contain range from her childhood and her sister Barbara’s horrific teenage suicide, to hanging out with her friends (many of who are familiar to her fans), and to the nightmare of addiction.

Trixie on the Cot, New York City, 1979, Silver dye bleach print, printed 2008. I can’t tell you how many Photos I’ve seen that seem influenced by this remarkable Photo. A Note about my show photos- Frankly, glare at shows is indicative of choices in glazing (and choices in lighting). All of my pictures taken in shows document what it really looked like, which is less than ideal for any viewer in this case. In my experience, too few galleries and museums use glare-free acrylic, probably due to its extra cost. In fairness, when I took this at MoMA in March, 2017, glare-free acrylic was not as commonly used as it is now. You can also see it better here.

Nan Goldin began using Slideshows shortly after relocating to NYC in 1978. Her first, called Ballads of Sexual Dependency at the time, was included in the legendary Times Square Show, 1980, that was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first public show, and also included the work of Jane Dickson, among others. It consisted of upwards of 700 Photographs and had a soundtrack. In 1986, the Artist & Aperture Foundation whittled those down to the 127 images published in the now classic PhotoBook of the same name, which was most recently reprinted for the twenty-first time.

The entrance to the show in March, 2017.

In 2016-7 MoMA showed The Ballad of Sexual Dependency Slideshow (which lasts almost 42 minutes), a gallery of Photographic Prints from the series, and ephemera including vintage posters for early presentations of the work (shown above), when it was called Ballads of Sexual Dependency, from Ms. Goldin’s collection. It leads off This Will Not End Well with 60 images, with Steidl’s Press Release saying, “The book retains the presentation of the slide shows by showing all images in the same format on a black background and sequenced as they are in the sources.” I don’t know how many others, besides myself, would have loved to have seem ALL the images of all the Slideshows included in order in the book. That would have been a huge book. What is included is hard to argue with, given the Artist’s involvement. Even though the Slideshows are not complete (with selected stills from the Films included), the book is a remarkable chance to see these works in stop frame, which provides a chance to study the individual Photographs and to study the sequence, which move by quickly on the screen, at least in the sections reproduced.

Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City, 1983, Silver dye bleach print. Nan took this with a remote she’s holding in her hand. Obviously, it became the cover image for the Aperture book, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Seen at MoMA in March, 2017.

The Other Side (Slideshows, 16:45 in duration), All by Myself (Slideshow, about 6 minutes), Sisters, Saints and Sibyls (Three-channel video, 35 minutes), Fire Leap (Slideshow, about 15 minutes), Scopophilia (about 23 1/2 minutes), Sirens (Single-channel video, 16 minutes), Memory Lost (Slideshow, 24 1/2 minutes), and a final section titled “Missing,” follow. Each one will touch the heart, and linger in the mind indefinitely. This Will Not End Well was not a book I suspect many saw coming. But now that it’s here it earns its place as another excellent book among Nan Goldin’s classic books. Not one of which I’d part with. 

The infamous Heart-Shaped Bruise, 1980, Silver dye bleach print. Seen at MoMA in March, 2017.

“You live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you  learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learn”-*

I am not optimistic about how much Photography will be considered “Art” in a few hundred years when all the dust settles. It, and Film, are relatively young mediums, and so, so much Photography has been done. Of that that survives, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Nan Goldin’s work make the cut. Such is the power of her work.

The equally infamous Nan One Month After Being Battered, 1984, Silver dye bleach print. Seen at MoMA, March 2017.

Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well is an Also Recommended NoteWorthy PhotoBook for 2023. The full list is here. 

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “You Learn” by Alan’s Morissette from her masterpiece, Jagged Little Pill, 1995.  I saw Alanis perform it live on her ’95 tour with the great Shirley Manson & Garbage opening! But, seeing her sing it here in São Paulo last month gave me chills. In this inferior quality audience recording (her official video is here), she sounds like she’s almost holding back so she can hear the massive crowd singing her lyrics back to her. WHAT a feeling that must be! I’ve played in front of appreciative crowds, but to see and hear the effect your Music has had on so many people has got to be overwhelming. I imagine Nan Goldin is, also, getting a good deal of love coming back to her from all of those who relate to, and love, her work.

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  1. Like this one, to name one. ↩

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2023- Two Masterpieces

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

PhotoBooks completely took over my life for over 6 years from 2016 through 2022, during which time I immersed myself in Modern & Contemporary Photography (which for me is the period after the publication of Robert Frank’s The Americans in 1958-9). After not publishing a NoteWorthy PhotoBooks list for 2022, two books stood out for me among the PhotoBooks I saw this year. Since I don’t believe the “best” exists in the Arts, I prefer to call them “NoteWorthy,” i.e. books I most highly recommend among all those I saw in 2023. Both are among the most powerful books I’ve seen in years. In my opinion, both books are masterpieces. Other recommended books follow them.

Both NoteWorthy PhotoBooks have two people in common. One, Kris Graves is no stranger to this list. His A Bleak Reality was a NoteWorthy PhotoBook of 2021. His publishing company Kris Graves Projects/Monolith Editions was the NoteWorthy PhotoBook Publisher of 2020 when they somehow managed to publish EIGHTEEN books during the pandemic! This year, Mr. Graves is the Photographer/Artist/Author of one of the two, and he and his Monolith Editions is the publisher of both books (co-publisher with Hatje Cantz of one). As a result, Kris Graves Projects/Monolith Editions are the NoteWorthy PhotoBook Publisher, again, for 2023.

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2023

Jon Henry, Stranger Fruit, Monolith Editions

In a word: overwhelming.

“Stranger Fruit was created in response to the senseless murders of black men across the nation by police violence. Even with smart phones and dash cams recording the actions, more lives get cut short due to unnecessary and excessive violence. Who is next? Me? My brother? My friends?” Jon Henry

Mr Henry continues, “Lost in the furor of media coverage, lawsuits and protests is the plight of the mother. Who, regardless of the legal outcome, must carry on without her child. I set out to photograph mothers with their sons in their environment, reenacting what it must feel like to endure this pain. The mothers in the photographs have not lost their sons, but understand the reality, that this could happen to their family.”

The way Mr. Henry has chosen to depict these mothers and sons is in the form known in Painting and Sculpture as the “Pieta” (or pity). Traditionally, Jesus’s mother, Mary, holds her dead son on her lap after the Crucifixion. The “Pieta” has long been among the most powerful and poignant compositions in Western Art. To this point, and for the past 800 years, it’s been the exclusive realm of Painters and Sculptors (most famously Michelangelo).

Along comes Jon Henry, who shows that they can be every bit as powerful in Photography- even without a directly religious reference. He has chosen it to depict the unspeakable pain mothers of murdered Black sons must have experienced in the unique way of depicting mothers holding their living sons. I asked Mr. Henry how he came to use it in Stranger Fruit–

 “I grew up studying painting and religious iconography by way of stained glass windows in the church I worked in, so I was very familiar with the motif.  There were more contemporary uses of the pieta, such as Dr David Driskell and Renee Cox, that really made me believe I could use this as the vehicle behind this project.
But everything really revolved around the mother.  I know that my work is not the first to speak about police brutality in the african american community but I felt the mothers were left out of the conversation.  Focusing on them through this mother/son relationship was why the pieta made so much sense for me.”

 In Stranger Fruit (which is named after the Abel Meeropol 1937 song, “Strange Fruit,” protesting the lynching of Black Americans, and immortalized by Billie Holiday) we also get to hear from them. Most of the images are accompanied by a text written by the mother.

I was stunned when I picked this book up for the first time. As far as I know, no one has done anything like this before. Yes, there are combat images from too many wars and conflicts already that are Pietas. Yet, I’ve never seen an entire book of them, and only them. I asked Kris Graves how he discovered Jon, this remarkable body of work, and came to publish Stranger Fruit. He said, “I met Jon some years before the pandemic and he was already hard at work on the project. I told him then that I’d love to publish the work when he felt it was complete. During covid, I founded Monolith and it was an even better fit for the ideals of Stranger Fruit. Soon after, we reconnected and started production.”

The 600 copies of the 1st printing of Stranger Fruit have sold out. I’m told the recently announced 2nd printing is selling quickly. I look forward to the time when it’s no longer vital as a document of immediate social import, to when it can just be appreciated as a work of Art.

Kris Graves, Privileged Mediocrity, Monolith Editions/Hatje Cantz

One of the most important PhotoBooks released this century, Privileged Mediocrity is Kris Graves’s masterpiece among his fine books thus far, in my opinion.

From Part I- The Murder of Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge

Years in the making, involving extensive stretches of travel during the height of the covid pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Protests, at what must have been considerable personal risk, in the days leading to the birth of his first child, it feels to me like this is the book his work has been building toward all along.

From Part I– Slave Market, Charleston

It’s divided into three sections: “Part I: Privileged Mediocrity & The Deceived Within,” “Part II: A Southern Horror, 2020,” and “Part III: A Latency, 2000-2022.” Though Part I sets the stage  with images from NYC, New York State and Boston as well as the South, the book is centered on the South in Parts II & III. Mr. Graves visited innumerable Confederate monuments throughout the South, and shows them before, during and after the protests.

From Part II

“Part II: A Southern Horror, 2020,” is gravely presented with black & white Photos on black paper in which Mr. Graves inventories many of these problematic monuments by state and their connection to racism, which is downright chilling to see on page after page- 46 pages in all- many with up to 8 sites on a page! “Part III Latency 2000-22” shows many of these sites during and after the protests.

From Part III- George Floyd Projection, Richmond, Virginia. National Geographic Magazine put this image on the cover of its “Photos of the Year, 2020” issue. I asked Kris what he remembers about taking this classic and historic image. He said, “A few days into my Richmond trip, I was introduced to the projectionist, who was working at the protests. On a clear night, he set up at the Lee Monument and I headed out around midnight. It was lively out there, but peaceful. The projections of dozens that were killed by police were displayed for about one second at a time. I asked him to slow it down a bit then made pictures for a few hours. Got a good one.”

Progress has been too long in coming. Part 1 of Privileged Mediocrity speaks to that. When the damn of patience finally burst after yet more murders of unarmed Black men and women, Kris Graves documented a fleeting turning point in American history powerfully, and in his own way. He focuses on the evidence to be seen on the land: scenes of murders and monuments that are offensive to many and a real part of the ongoing problems. A number of them are seen feeling the brunt of the resulting frustration and anger.

From Part III- John Lewis High School, Springfield, Virginia

After the protests, we see images of the raw beginnings of whatever it is we are in now. In John Lewis High School, Springfield, Virginia, the sign for the school’s former name, Robert E. Lee High School, has been flipped around under its new name. The question these image leave may be “Where to now?” For me, along with all the horror, they also represent moments of hope. The book is dedicated to his newborn son.

From Part III- Self-Portrait with Stonewall Jackson Shrine, Woodford, Virginia

The American edition of Privileged Mediocrity consists of just 300 copies. My piece on meeting Kris Graves in 2018 here.

I mentioned that both NoteWorthy PhotoBooks have two people in common. In addition to Kris Graves, they both feature the work of the same designer, the ever-creative Caleb Cain Marcus of Luminosity Labs. Mr. Marcus has outdone himself in both books, in my view. With the supreme taste & restraint he displays in Stranger Fruit, and in, what strikes me, as pulling out all the stops in Privileged Mediocrity, as he bends the style to match each section of the book, for which he even designed a font.

Also Recommended-

Chris Killip, Thames & Hudson

In 2018, Chris Killip’s former student, Gregory Halpern, turned me on to Mr. Killip’s work. Unfortunately, the book he most highly recommended, In Flagrante, from 1988, has long been out of print and expensive, so I only caught a glimpse of it when Mr. Halpern gave a tour of his book shelves. I managed to get In Flagrante Two, 2016. which is now also out of print.

New in print is this wonderful retrospective that Mr. Killip (who died in October, 2020) did not live to see published, unfortunately. It’s beautifully done. I particularly appreciate its size and design. It’s almost 12 1/2 by 10, big without being oversized. The design is both tasteful and fresh, with the use of red being a great contrast to the mostly (but not all) black & white images. Looking at his work, Mr. Killip’s Portraits and Landscapes often have qualities I find in Rembrandt, one of the highest compliments I can pay any Artist, which are enhanced by his use of “unconventional” poses only found in life. A model Photography retrospective, it fittingly includes an essay by Mr. Halpern.

Trent Parke, Monument, Stanley/Barker

Being a city boy I have a real weakness for books depicting city life. But, I’ve seen too many that just leave me cold, and no, I’m not going to name which. Few and far between are those that really speak to me. Trent Parke’s Monument is one. Whereas most of the others are a string of Photos “connected” (if at all) by place, Monument is a look at the “alien world” Mr. Parke says he discovered when he moved to Sydney, Australia from a small country town. Mesmerized by the endless procession of workers to and fro day after day, he likened them to the countless moths that he saw at night, and includes, that were drawn by the bright lights of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Drawn to their death. Such is life in far too many places on Earth in 2023.

Entirely in black & white, with its minimal text only in Braille (which you’ll need to know to determine if your’s is a copy of the sold out 1st printing, or the upcoming 2nd printing), it’s a book that captures the fractured light of modern life going by in a blur as human moths go about chasing their own flame of a dream. Apparently, these Photos were taken before the pandemic as no one wears a mask. It’s beautifully designed & produced with Stanley/Barker in an embossed leather cover. Though it’s in black & white, Monument is one of the very few PhotoBooks I can think of that can bear up against Saul Leiter’s Early Color, perhaps the masterpiece of City photography of the books I’ve seen, which is one one of the most essential PhotoBooks of the 21st century in my view.

Jim Goldberg, Coming and Going, Mack Books

Jim Goldberg’s magnum opus (no pun intended) is a unique, visual autobiography, another tour de force of book design, as all of his books are. Coming and Going is autobiographical, though in classic Jim Goldberg style. Though there is no running text narrative, he feels free to write, draw or annotate on the images as he sees fit which helps guide the reader/viewer along. And who’s to argue with his choice? He’s forged a trademark style doing it that doesn’t age or look dated. Containing 360 13 by 11 inch pages, most of the material I have never seen before. There are stories, some featuring familiar characters from his prior books, though they are contained on 2-page spreads, which makes them look more like an Art work than a text. The story of his life moves forward on the power of his images, and that’s as it should be with such a one-of-a-kind Artist. A good number of them depict members of his family with love, understanding and poignancy, as they grow or age, even pass away.

Coming and Going is a LARGE book weighing in at 6 1/2 pounds, I wish it was a hardcover, instead of the stiff boards is covered with, because it’s a book that’s sure to see lots of handling and page-turning. Already at an $85. list, that probably would have added at least $5 to the cost. Then again, his classic Raised by Wolves was a softcover, too. Wolves remains THE classic Jim Goldberg book, but long-time fans will find much to get lost in in Coming and Going. 

Jay DeFeo: Photographic Works, Jay DeFeo Foundation/ DelMonico

I could very well have listed this in NoteWorthy Art Books, 2023, but it’s here to make a point. Jay DeFeo (1929-89) is, perhaps, best known for her Painting, The Rose, 1969, and as a Painter. Though she passed at 60 from cancer in 1990, her star has continued to rise steadily since. Now comes the revelation that she was, also, a Photographic Artist, as this book, and the accompanying show at Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC, shows. Not only that, she was a formidable Photographic Artist.

The “point” I’m trying to make, yet again, is that Jay DeFeo is another on a list that gets longer all the time- a list of Painters who were also accomplished Photographers. To this point, they continue to remain overlooked by the larger Photography community, which continues to baffle me.

The two works shown above in the book as seen in the current show Inventing Objects: Jay DeFeo’s Photographic Work at Paula Cooper Gallery, September 22, 2023.

Right now at MoMA as I write, the great Ed Ruscha is the subject of a blockbuster retrospective, Now/Then. In 2016, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo’s close friend for many years, received one at MoMA, which I wrote about here. Yet, L.A. and San Francisco Artists who came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s have been slow to receive the attention their East Coast counterparts have been enjoying for decades- particularly on the East Coast. Artists like Ed Kienholz quickly come to mind. Very near the top of the list, it’s way past time for the Jay DeFeo East Coast Retrospective.

Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well, Steidl is my last Also Recommended NoteWorthy PhotoBook for 2023. I wrote about it here.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Strange Fruit,” by Billie Holiday.

Be sure to see the companion list to this one- NoteWorthy Art Books, 2023

My previous NoteWorthy PhotoBook lists-

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2018

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2019. And others

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021

 

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NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

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William Klein- A Thousand Times YES

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Show Seen- William Klein: YES @ ICP

William Klein, who passed away at 94 on September 10th, was a big name for so long, creating legendary and hugely influential PhotoBooks, Films, Fashion Photography, Paintings, Photograms, and on and on, that it seemed to me he was somewhat taken for granted over what turned out to be the last decade of his life. Case in point- I can’t remember the last big William Klein show in NYC. So, the International Center of Photography’s career retrospective, William Klein: YES, June 3rd to September 15th, was not to be missed. Due to circumstances out of my control (i.e. my new life), I managed to see it on its closing night, day 5 after the Artist passed.

Untitled (Blurred White Squares on Black and Orange Gel Sheet), c. 1952, Gelatin silver print with transparent orange filter, top, and Untitled (White and Yellow Moving Lines), c. 1952, Gelatin silver print with yellow paint.

Paintings, Collage, Photograms, bodies of b&w Street Photographs in NYC, Paris, Rome, Moscow and Tokyo, Fashion Photography, Film, color Photography, Painted contact sheets filled both gallery floors of the International Center of Photography’s fairly new Essex Street building. The show felt like it was the work of 6 or 7 Artists. Perhaps that’s why they named the show William Klein: YES Photographs, Paintings, Films, 1948-2013- as a reminder that ALL of this sprang from one unique Artist.

The earliest works on view. Untitled (Gymnasts), c. 1949, Untitled (Still life, lamp, and vase), c. 1949, Oil on wood- the others are all oil on canvas, Untitled (Gymnasts), c. 1949, and Untitled c. 1952, from left to right.

After studies with Fernand Léger, William Klein temporarily ignored his advice to get into Photography, Film and publishing, instead embarking on a career as an Abstract Painter during the height of the first wave of Abstract Expressionists. He managed to carve out a style that had elements of Mondrian but also showed an affinity for multi-layered compositions that would also be seen in his later Photography. It’s interesting that the two Gymnast Paintings, above, feature monochrome figures, also presaging his b&w Street Photography.

In 1952, an architect saw William Klein’s Paintings and asked him to adapt them to a room divider made of rotating panels. While Photographing the panels, Klein’s wife spun them. Fascinated with the effect, hep down his camera,  went into the darkroom and began experimenting with Photograms, like Man Ray before him, holding cards with cut out shapes over photo paper during long exposures.

While Photographing a piece he’d been asked to paint, William Klein was inspired to put his camera down and experiment in the darkroom with light on photo paper using long exposures. Man Ray had been among the first to explore Photograms, and Robert Rauschenberg would a few years later, but neither’s look like Mr. Klein’s. They found admirers among graphic designers, who featured them on magazine covers and record covers.

William Klein’s Photograms on the covers of Domus Magazine from 1955, 1959, and 1952, left to right.

His Painting turned out to open a door to his future when Alexander Lieberman, art director of Vogue saw a show of them in Paris and, impressed with his strong vision, saw a Fashion Photographer in him. William Klein, who was born in NYC before moving to Paris in 1946 to become a Painter came back to the City to work for Vogue. Along the way William Klein became Klein, and he broke as many rules shooting fashion as he did in his Art. He took models out of the studio and on to the streets and collaborated with them on shoots. Possibly as a result of this, Mr. Lieberman also funded William Klein’s desire to shoot the streets of NYC. The body of work that became Life is Good came into being, as did the Photographer being christened, “the angry young man of photography1.”

A wall of prints from the classic Life is Good & Good for You in New York, 1956, taken between 1954 and 1956. Almost all of the work in the show was from the William Klein Studio, and the prints were spectacular.

Filling two floors, almost all of the work on view was provided by the Artist, himself, most likely marking the final time he would be directly involved in a show of his work. The quality of the prints on view, many “printed later,” were of the highest order. The black & white prints were unforgettable- black could never be blacker, and many of the color Fashion Photos were printed at a large, even huge size, which made them even more stunning.

A timeless image of NYC, Selwyn, 42nd Street, New York, 1955 (printed 2016), Gelatin silver print. The play of light and shade in this incredible print is a subject all its own. I’m not sure black can be blacker than this.

The late Robert Frank is, possibly, the most influential Photographer of the past 60 years, but a very strong case can be made that William Klein is in that discussion. His Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Reveals, was published in 1956, 2 years BEFORE Mr. Frank’s seminal The Americans. Seen alongside the Frank book, Life is Good is a fascinating counterpoint, showing a different America than that seen in The Americans. Mr. Frank got a lot of grief for showing America as he saw it. Mr. Klein’s Life is Good shows gritty NYC as the melting pot it has long been where anything could happen at any moment. But it is his style and technique that ruffled many feathers. Rough, raw, out of focus, as dark as night, off kilter, lacking coherent compositions, grainy…were among the criticisms of those who were perhaps thinking that Henri Cartier-Bresson had discovered the only “true way” to take Street Photographs. But, there was method to his madness, and his methods resounded with many viewers right up to today.

The avant-garde William Klein. Another multi-layered composition. Atget, then Walker Evans took Photos of similar scenes before William Klein, and Richard Estes has spent a good deal of his career Painting them, as I showed a few months back.

Looking through Life is Good is always surprising, even when you’ve seen it before. Quite a few people smile, indicating life was, indeed, good for them, in spite of the rough and tumble settings. A number of others (upwards of 50% of his subjects?) look at the camera and many of those seem to be in cahoots with the Photographer. Many images work in multiple layers from foreground to back. Many show fleeting moments that in Mr. Klein’s hands become intriguing, if not “decisive.” There is a section of urban landscapes in the middle that show a bit of the influence of Walker Evans, but mostly serve to give the book a decidedly avant-garde feel that it retains today. His Photographs down through the years from the b&w shots of NYC of the mid-1950s up to his color work in Brooklyn in 2013 show the universality of modern human existence. Whereas Mr. Frank observes masterfully, Klein often interacts.

Flat Plan for Life is Good & Good for You in New York, 1955, Ink, pencil and colored pencil on paper.

Whereas The Americans remains hugely influential here in the US, and perhaps not as much in the rest of the world, Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Reveals, has been hugely influential around the world. It singlehandedly rewrote the possibilities of Street Photography. Perhaps its influence was felt nowhere more than it was in Japan. Daido Moriyama, a great Street Photographer in his own right, has created an important career exploring some of the ideas & techniques William Klein used in Life is Good, which served as an influence and a catalyst2, particularly his high contrast, motion blur and unusual angles. So have any number of other important Japanese Photographers from the late 1950s, on, not to mention numerous others everywhere else. Nakahara Takuma, with Mr. Moriyama one of the Photographers who produced the legendary Provoke Magazine beginning in 1968, wrote a lengthy article on William Klein in 1967. In it, he said about the reaction to Life is Good, “…its impact was unprecedented. The reaction could even be called panic.” And, “…(a number of) photographers…thought of Klein’s photography as an ‘impudent ‘ amateur game, as mere technical experiment. Immediately after New York was published, critical opinion was polarized; rather than photography, it was advocates for the other related genres, such as painting and film, who supported it most positively3.” A case could be made that a good deal of Japanese Photography since its publication bears its influence. “It is not so surprising, therefore, that his photography, as something so new, became extremely popular, especially among the young,” Nakahara Takuma said in the same piece. Pretty remarkable for the first PhotoBook by an untrained Photographer. 

Atomic Bomb Sky, New York, 1955 (printed 2012), Gelatin silver print. Of the millions of images I’ve seen of NYC in my life, I’ve never seen one like this.

It should also be noted that Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Reveals has never been published in the USA4! Early on, every publisher rejected it. The first edition was published by Editions du Seuil in Paris in 1956. William Klein followed Life is Good with books on Paris (2002), Rome (1959), Moscow (1964) & Tokyo (1964. It was reported that Klein took 50,000 Photos for it5.), each of which got a section in the show, each of which remains out of print and highly sought after. 

Antonia and Yellow Taxi, New York, 1962 (printed 2016), from Vogue, Pigment print. When I saw this shot at AIPAD in 2017, I realized I needed to do a deep dive into William Klein. I’m still exploring his huge oeuvre. A bit reminicient of Saul Leiter, perhaps?

Meanwhile, Klein had become a top Fashion Photographer.

Installation view. Paris, 1964-83, in the lower foreground and to the right, Life is Good/NYC behind, Painted Contact Sheets above, and a sliver of the large video projection screen, left. I remain no fan of “holes” in museums, including this one which spans the width of the entire floor, except for 2 narrow walkways on the sides. For me they are just expensive wasted exhibition space. I’m not sure they add anything to the show-going experience. In William Klein’s case, quite a bit more work could have been shown.

The second floor was largely devoted to Mr. Klein’s Film work, which is equally revered and important.

Filmstrip montage from Muhammad Ali: The Greatest, 1964-74, Directed by William Klein.

I will leave that for others who have studied it closer than I have to cover. One thing about them that stands out is that Klein repeatedly focused on important Black figures of the time- Little Richard, Muhammad Ali and Eldridge Cleaver among them. 

Tramway, Capellona, Rome, 1956, (printed 2013), Gelatin silver print. It’s just me, but my mind juxtaposes this with Robert Frank’s Trolley-New Orleans, 1955, when I see this work.

In the end, William Klein proves impossible to pin down. Each time I look through Life is Good, I pick up on a different thread and see things I didn’t notice previously. That’s true of much of his work.

Kiev Railroad Station, Moscow, 1959 (printed 1997), Gelatin silver print.

Breaking the rules was easier for him because he didn’t know all of them. William Klein shows that, even without training, an Artist’s creativity and vision can be enough to create important, lasting and influential Art.

6 Gelatin silver prints from Tokyo, 1961, including Tokyo Stock Market and Yoyogi Hairdressing School, Tokyo, upper far right and lower far right, printed later.

WK:YES will serve as a testament to his accomplishment over his sixty-five year career and a benchmark for all future William Klein shows. Most likely its soon-to-be-published 400 page catalog will serve as a beacon to influence still more people and aspiring Artists, adding to the incalculable number Klein already has. 

R.I.P.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “All Blues” by the Miles Davis Sextet from Miles’ immortal Kind of Blue, 1959–

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I can no longer fund it myself. More on why here.
If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to keep it online & ad-free below.
Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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  1. Gernsheim, A Concise History of Photography, 1986, p.131 ↩
  2. https://time.com/3792413/william-klein-daido-moriyama-double-feature/ ↩
  3. Nakahara Takuma, “William Klein,” 1967, reprinted in Provoke, Art Institute of Chicago, 2016, p.362 ↩
  4. A facsimile version with every page Photographically reproduced, some reduced, in a smaller size book was published by Errata Editions, NYC in 2010. When I bought a signed copy of it, the seller reported that Mr. Klein looked at it curiously before signing it having not seen it previously. An indication that it was not an “official” edition of Life is Good. ↩
  5. Nakahara Takuma, “William Klein,” 1967, reprinted in Provoke, Art Institute of Chicago, 2016. ↩

Ahndraya Parlato: Magic, Mystery, Love & Death

Written by Kenn Sava. Photographs by Ahndraya Parlato.

Photographer & Professor Ahndraya Parlato is also a mom to two young daughters and a wife. That’s more to juggle than I can even begin to imagine. Yet, somehow, through it all, she’s managed to create, and co-create, three PhotoBooks that linger in the mind and place her among the more interesting Photographers to emerge in the past decade. In fact, these past five years, any time someone has asked me who was either a very over-looked Photographer, or the Photographer deserving wider recognition, her name was the first I mentioned.

The cover of Who is Changed and Who is Dead

In 2021, she released her third PhotoBook, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, a NighthawkNYC NoteWorthy PhotoBook of the Year, published by Mack Books, her second monograph following 2016’s A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, published by Kehrer. They were preceded by a collaboration with Mr. Parlato, Gregory Halpern, published by Études Books in 2014 titled East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon. Ostensibly, the subject this time is Ms. Parlato’s mom’s suicide. A victim of parental suicide myself, somewhat amazingly, her’s is the first book I have come across to address the subject. She deserves much credit for daring to broach this topic few are apparently willing to speak about (understandably). All three of Ahndraya’s books have two part names. In the case of Who is Changed and Who is Dead, the subject has three parts: her late mother, herself, and her 2 young daughters (most frequently addressed as a pair, even when she starts out referring to one of them. Ava and Iris Halpern-Parlato are the only two of the three to actually appear in person in the book’s Photos, though all three subjects appear equally in Ahndraya’s extremely personal & revelatory text. 

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead. “SPOILER: THEY DIE,” the text reads…

When I first got Who is Changed, I delved right into the text, the first Ahndraya has written in one of her books. The fellow victim in me was looking to see how her mother’s suicide effected her and how she handled it. (Disclaimer- Of course, the book is not intended or designed to be read this way. It’s a PhotoBook!) Reading the text as a whole gave me the chance to hear her voice without interruption.

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

It turns out the book is more a “snap shot” of Ahndraya in 2021: her life to this point, and her life with her children. As such, it’s a book that will provide comfort and reassurance to new moms, particularly those who are also Artists. Though the text is written in compact sections, there is a lot to unpack, and more to process. Part 1 is titled “To My Children,” and starts with a wish for a long and happy life for both of them followed, after a coma, by an acknowledgement of understanding the “desire to go out together,” apparently born in her mother’s suggestion that the two of them jump out of a window of a NYC building when Ahndraya was in 3rd grade! It’s in moments like this that the subject of suicide bubbles to the surface, like it quite possibly does in the lives of other suicide victims. Tender reminiscences of her grandmother and mother follow, before she goes on to reveal her own fears of dying-

“I want to be alive. I need to be alive. I’m scared of dying because you need me.”

Part 2 is titled “To My Mother,” but both parts quickly revert back to the thing that is always on her mind (understandably): her children’s well-being. Ava and Iris appear, singly, in a number of her Photos, in at least one instance the appearance was unplanned1. They add hope (and stress), to the aftereffects of tragedy, and a reminder that life is a continuum. Life is also incredibly precious and incredibly fragile, and perhaps there is no one more vulnerable than the very young, or the very old. This comes through on virtually every page of her text.

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

In my reading, it turns out that her mom’s suicide is more of a subtext that is always there, yet, her book offers much more than the reassurance that we victims are not alone, as valuable as that is. In it, we learn that Ahndraya’s mom’s mom (Ahndraya’s grandmother) also died horrifically, murdered by someone she knew, and we get glimpses of life with a mother who was sent to a psychiatric hospital after drinking ammonia, when Ahndraya was in 3rd grade, and then was diagnosed as a as a paranoid schizophrenic. As she weaves episodes from her own biography into the text, never far from her mind are her worries are her fears for her young daughters, understandably. Reading them, I was struck by how she never mentions her own mother’s worries and fears for her, at how she ALWAYS appears to be an adult, and usually  the parent. Even when she addresses us at age 3. Perhaps, this is because there is almost nothing of her mom in her own younger years here. When we meet her, she is already suffering from the illness that may have led to her death. The text is not linear and flows across time as it will, and reads in ways that are partially reminiscent of a diary, partially as conversations in thought with the subject. Her own chronology gets disjointed as a result, and I gave up trying to plot her geographical life’s course, yet the point is always, firmly, in the immediate moment. Born in Kailua, Hawaii, Ahndraya went on to earn a B.A. in photography from Bard College and an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts, where she studied with Todd Hido, in who’s class she met Gregory Halpern (Mr. Hido told me with obvious pride). 

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

I got so lost in the text that weeks, then months, went by before I actually looked at her Photographs! When I did, I quickly found that many are striking and linger indefinitely in the mind. Nothing Strange there. I’ve been taken with her Photography going back to her first monograph, A Spectacle And Nothing Strange, published in 2016. The Photos include images of her mom’s ashes sprinkled on photo paper, printed glossy, to show-stopping effect as shown above. Elsewhere, her daughters pose by themselves or with plants, in ways that look nothing like Sally Mann’s iconic images of her children.

The end result is a unique book that allows the reader to begin to piece together the Artist’s life’s journey from childhood, through difficult years with a mother who was ill before her suicide, to the struggles to process her mother’s death (part of which never ends), to her own motherhood and the worries and fears omnipresent in the crazy world we live in now. It’s hard enough to survive today without, also, trying to raise, care for, and protect children!

From Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead

And ALSO be an Artist! Reading Who Is Changed took me back to my readings on Alice Neel, who was able to keep her Art career going, though at the cost of her personal life, in very hard times and difficult circumstances. In some ways, she was a role model for Contemporary female Artists. In other ways, perhaps she’s not an ideal role model. At least, by having children and having a long Art career, she proved it CAN be done. Today, Artists like Ms. Parlato have found ways to achieve a healthier balance between Art & family, even in these insane times, which makes them all the more admirable.

The other sub theme of Who Is Changed is the author’s verbal and visual efforts to make peace with her mom and her death. This is the real work for all survivors, and something, I for one feel, the person committing suicide probably never thought about how long and hard the road ahead would be for their victims- those who loved them they leave behind. In Ahndraya’s case, I only hope it helped.

As I mentioned, Who is Changed is not the only wonderful PhotoBooks Ahndraya has published. 

East of the Sun, West of the Moon, A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, left to right.

Her initial release, the collaboration East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon, published in France by Etudes in 2014, saw its 300 copies disappear before I became aware of it and started looking for it. Luckily, in late 2021, the publisher found some unsold copies and I was able to finally see it. It turned out to be worth every moment of the anticipation.

From *East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Ahndraya Parlato & Gregory Halpern

At the time they collaborated, Gregory Halpern had already released Harvard Works, the first, small edition, of Omaha Sketchbook, and A. East Of The Sun is a magical book full of mystery. I quickly gave up trying to figure out its biggest mystery- attempting to determine which image bore more of the mark of one or the other- it’a a true, and seamless, collaboration. East Of The Sun loves to present straight forward Photos with a twist.

Of course the city boy would particularly like this one…*From East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Ahndraya Parlato & Gregory Halpern

Every single image is chocked full of questions for the viewer to get lost in. So far, I haven’t found a narrative, and the Photographers provide no written insights in the book itself. Elsewhere, I’ve read comments about it being shot on the Solstices and Equinoxes in 2012 and 2013, wherever they happened to be. Far be it for me to be able to tell from the Photographic evidence.

From *East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Ahndraya Parlato & Gregory Halpern

I’m only left to think I sure missed a lot of mystery going on around me on those days.

From A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, Kehrer Verlag, 2016,  was my introduction to Ahndraya Parlato. A terrific book, It’s another book of magic and mystery though this one is firmly grounded in the earth, regardless of what may be going on in the calendar or the heavens above. Though it consists of Portraits, Landscapes and Sill Lifes, every image is a Still Life of life: moments that are not “decisive” in the Cartier-Bresson sense but are decisive in the sense of capturing the moment that linger in the mind: the stuff of memories. Both alien and familiar, they are the kind of images that remain in the mind as souvenirs of an experience. I’m sure there’s a story to each one, but I’m glad I don’t know them so each becomes new to me, again, every time I page through it, as I have often, particularly during the past two years I’ve spent in isolation.

From A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

The past few years have seen the Artist receive quite a bit of well-earned recognition. In 2017, Ahndraya was a Nominee for the prestigious ICP Infinity Award. In 2013, she was a New York Foundation for the Arts grant recipient, Magenta Foundation Emerging Photographer Award winner, and was also shortlisted for the MACK First Book Award. She has also been a Light Work grant recipient and a nominee for the Paul Huf Award from the FOAM Museum in Amsterdam, as well as the SECCA Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art2.

While Ahndraya Parlato has received well-deserved recognition from the powers that be in the world of Photography, I still believe there is a bigger audience for her work out there.

My piece on Gregory Halpern’s PhotoBooks may be found here. 

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Sacrifice” by Björk, track 8 from her classic album, Biophilia, 2011. In the Biophilia app, the presentation for “Sacrifice” reads-

“Inspired by animal magic rituals and female sacrifice, Björk’s lyrics urge the listener to recognize the sacrifice made by all women for the sake of love.”

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  1. The Artist mentioned on social media. ↩
  2. Here. ↩

Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures

Show Seen: Alec Soth: A Pound of Pictures @ Sean Kelly Gallery, January 14 – February 26, 2022

Alec Soth returned to Sean Kelly on 10th Avenue with a show of his latest body of work titled A Pound of Pictures. The show coincided with the publication of his latest PhotoBook of the same title published by London’s Mack Books. Mr. Soth has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2008, during which time his popularity has steadily increased, so the arrival of new work is met with much curiosity and attention. I went for a look myself. I’ll also take this opportunity to survey his PhotoBooks to date, and make some recommendations in BookMarks, at the end.

“Get yourself a bride
And bring your children down to the river side.”*

A Pound of Pictures consists of Photographs Alec Soth took between 2018 and 2021 on various road trips around the country. There was no check list available, the first time in a long time I’ve seen that, so the titles are lacking.

The title of the exhibition, and the book, comes from a vendor Mr. Soth discovered on his travels in Los Angeles who sells photographs by the pound.

“Across the great divide
Just grab your hat, and take that ride”*

“Harvest moon shinin’ down from the sky, a weary sign for all
I’m gonna leave this one horse town, had to stall till the fall
Now I’m gonna crawl, across the great divide”*

“Across the great divide
And bring your children down to the river side.”*

Five smaller works shown in an alcove completed the display.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Across The Great Divide,” by J. Robbie Robertson and recorded on The Band in 1969.

BookMarks-
When it comes to making & publishing PhotoBooks, Alec Soth has been quite prolific. To date, he has produced books with Steidl, Mack Books and his own publishing house, Little Brown Mushroom creating plenty to explore. His first two books are contemporary classics among PhotoBooks released in this century, and are both highly recommended.

Sleeping By The Mississippi, his first book, was published by Steidl in 2004 in a decorative cloth cover, before being reissued twice by Steidl with pictorial covers- all three editions gong out of print and fetching substantial prices on the aftermarket. The cheaper alternative is the Mack Books reprint edition published in 2017 and still in print.

Mississippi was followed by Niagara, first published by Steidl in 2008, and was quite hard to find until Mack Books reissued it on its 10th anniversary in 2018, which is still available.

Among his other books, Songbook and Gathered Leaves, both published by Mack Books in 2015, are the two most noteworthy, and recommended. Songbook, a collection of black & white Photos, shot around the country, was first published by Mack Books in 2015. It is notorious for its lime green cover which is the most prone to fading book I have ever seen. Good luck finding a first edition/first printing with a truly green cover. Unfortunately, the way it fades, to a dead grass brown, completely ruins the original intention. I have no idea if later printings have fixed this issue. The only choice for buyers of a copy with a truly green cover is to NEVER let it see the light of day. Find the most light-proof covering or bag you can and store it some place dark. Recommended with that caution.

Gathered Leaves is an interesting box set/compilation of reduced size versions of four complete PhotoBooks by Mr. Soth- Sleeping By The Mississippi, Niagara, Broken Manual, and Songbook. At the time it was published, it was the only way for 99% of readers to see Broken Manual, (which was published by Mr. Soth & Steidl in 2010 in a limited edition which completely disappeared almost immediately), Mississippi, and Niagara, all three being mostly legends to those who missed them, and were out of print in 2015. Recommended because you get to see these four books complete, and in spite of the smaller size reproduction of the books.

Mack Books has just announced a new version of Gathered Leaves, to be released later this year. This time, five books are brought together in one large softcover- Sleeping By The Mississippi, Niagara (both originally published by Steidl), Broken Manual, Songbook are joined by the new A Pound of Pictures. Auspiciously missing from this group is I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, released in 2019. Is leaving it out entirely an indication that Mr. Soth feels I Know How Furiously is not as strong as his other books? I found it surprising, but I agree.

I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, 2019, Mack Books will be an essential purchase for Alec Soth fans and completists, I rank it as unnecessary for those seeking an overview or only the most essential books. Besides Broken Manual, which will run you thousands of dollars depending on what’s included, which I would include, Sleeping By The Mississippi and Niagara remain his essential books. Both remain affordable in the Mack Books editions.

The recently released A Pound of Pictures, published by Mack Books, is something of a return to form, another large-format, road trip based body of work, like Sleeping By The Mississippi and Songbook. Though not as strong as Mississippi or Niagara in my view, it retains Alec Soth’s curiosity and his ability to capture unexpected/incongruous combinations. Mr. Soth has continually experimented with format, layout and presentation throughout his PhotoBook career. Some succeed. Some a bit less so. I’m all for experimenting. I have some questions about Pound’s design from its curious covers (the title and Mr. Soth’s name appear in small type at the bottom of a long list on the front). I think the back cover should have been the front cover (ala the 3rd Steidl edition of Sleeping By The Mississippi), the front cover should have been the back cover. Inside, the prints, though a very nice size, seem to have a slightly faded look to them. When compared to the prints in the show (as seen above), the colors in the book lack a bit of “pop” to my eyes. Recommended, though after Sleeping By The Mississippi, Niagara and Songbook, among books readily available.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Nick Sethi’s PhotoBook Release In Canal Street

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (unless otherwise credited)

Canal Street often feels like what New Delhi must be like. Bustling shops on one side, with as many street vendors out front hawking everything under the Sun you can imagine, sandwiching an endless stream of pedestrians as bumper to bumper traffic inches along, or doesn’t, on Canal Street itself. Yet on this April 2nd Saturday afternoon things were surprisingly chill as I headed over from The Bowery, walking East through Chinatown. It seemed downright sleepy at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. There was actually room on the sidewalks and a paucity of traffic on Canal as I made my way to dimes square for the release of renowned Photographer Nick Sethi’s new PhotoBook, CIRCLE OF CONFUSION.

That’s right. We’re standing right in the middle of one of the busiest streets in NYC- which is open in both directions (gulp)- for a PhotoBook release! April 2, 2022.

There, on the north side of the street, RIGHT IN CANAL STREET ITSELF was a flatbed cart, the kind they feature at mini storage places, holding a bunch of brown cardboard boxes. A small group huddled around the cart. In the center was a man with a white Max Fish sweatshirt, brown work pants and yellow kicks, a virtual blur of activity. Bending to fetch books from boxes, thumbing through one until inspiration struck, then summoning a fairly spent Sharpie to draw a circle, symbolic of the title, and then append his signature. Personable and amiable to all who approached, Nick Sethi was a man on a mission to get his new book into the hands of fans and interested parties, directly, al fresco. Like they probably do in Delhi. And so it was at the “book release” for CIRCLE OF CONFUSION. 

“Hey! Mind that UPS truck. They stop for no one!”

The amiable Nick Sethi chatted with everyone who approached.

I’d never met Mr. Sethi, who has single-handedly put India on the map of recent Contemporary Photography here in the West in a big way (in addition to doing numerous fashion and editorial shoots). His debut magnum opus, Khichdi (Kitchari), published by Dashwood in 2018, saw 1,000 copies vaporize, quite a feat for a 1st PhotoBook on India. A sensation the moment it dropped, it’s now both rare and legendary. Though I’ve never been to India, the energy, vibrancy and color he found comes through on every page. As we chatted, the topic inevitably turned to it. I asked him about a possible reprint or new edition.

Nick Sethi’s epic, Khichdi (Kitchari), 2018.

He spoke about the unique collaboration that went into making the book with his Indian printers and how that would be extremely hard to replicate. Translation- Hold on to, and take good care of, your copy! Intriguingly, he mentioned having “behind the scenes” materials that he would like to append, IF, such a thing ever did come to pass.

from Khichdi (Kitchari)

Then, the conversation turned to his new book, the self-published CIRCLE OF CONFUSION . He said-

“CIRCLE OF CONFUSION was photographed chronologically in two short bursts in and around Sadar Bazaar, New Delhi’s largest and most hectic wholesale market. In an impressive display of organized chaos, porters transport goods through the labyrinth of alleyways, intersections, and roundabouts with handmade carts that they adorn to distinguish ownership.

In photographic terms, the CIRCLE OF CONFUSION refers to an optical spot used to determine the depth of field, the part of an image that is acceptably sharp. When photographing in Sadar Bazaar, it’s impossible to stop, observe, and compose a photo without disrupting flow of traffic. So as I feel situations unfolding, I just point and click, allowing technology, chance, and intuition to choose the crop and focus, and in turn expose the final image.”

Nick Sethi, Circle of Confusion, 2022, self-published. The only text anywhere inside or out is the Photographer’s name and the book title on the cover. No colophon. Nothing else.

Born and raised in the USA, his parents hailed from New Delhi, so he has a special connection with the city. He spoke of the chaos of Sadar Bazaar and how Photographing was a unique challenge requiring creative techniques to capture the sudden coalescing of people, things and colors. He demonstrated what he meant using the bright red Covid testing stand next to us with a neon green cord running somewhere behind us and different colored shirts people were wearing nearby, and how it all changed in the blink of an eye.

“Hey, buddy. Wanna buy a PhotoBook?” Naw…he didn’t have to say a word. They sold themselves.

I asked him about his influences, and the first name he mentioned was the great Ukrainian Photographer Boris Mikhailov.

Boris Mikhailov, Untitled (From the Red Series, 1968-75). *Boris Mikhailov Photo.

He also told me that in New Delhi they don’t mind you taking Photos, just DON’T stop moving! Holding things up is a no-no! That’s the way it usually feels on Canal Street. But, today, Nick was able to perform a Push-cart ballet without fear. 

Note to self- Having a big piece of steel in your hands is a one way to make it across a busy street safely.

Interrupted only by hugs to greet old friends arriving, all the time we chatted, Mr. Sethi was a whirling dervish as books continued to fly out of boxes, then under his Sharpie, and off to new homes. Each one memorialized in a Photo by the Photographer of the new owner and their book. And best of all: no one was hit, hurt or injured…at least while I was there.

I didn’t have a chance to ask him the backstory of how his cart got that paint job.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “India” by The Psychedelic Furs, the first track on their debut, self-titled Lp, released in 1980.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

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NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Oh, what would my life have been like these past almost 2 years without books? In a world without people, social events, or much else that most people considered regular parts of daily life “before,” I, like everyone else, was left to make the most out of what we had left, and make no mistake about it- I was, and am, grateful for what was left.

Though things returned to a semblance of what used to be called “normal” in the PhotoBook world in 2021, it was only that- a semblance. While the publishers somehow managed to hold up their end with the bigger houses announcing ambitious release plans with about the same amount of books as seen before 2020, things were a bit rockier elsewhere. The bigger book shows in NYC and the rest of the US were cancelled for 2021, so once again, retailers were the best way to actually see books in person, carefully. Things were still challenging for retail, and a number of independents I visited had cut down on their purchases, hours of operation, even whole departments, in order to survive. Hard to argue with that. So, it was still hard to see anywhere near as many new PhotoBooks as in years past. (Standard Disclaimer- As in years past, I have seen no one else’s list or reviews of books.)  Speaking of past years, I should mention that I have now been doing this list for four years. You can see the the prior installments for 2018 here, 2019 here, and 2020 here (I also looked at NoteWorthy Art Books in 2020 here and 2021 here). None of my pieces have sales links. As in past years, please note that publication dates are one thing, but I go by the dates I actually saw a book available for purchase- online or at retail, to include it in a specific year. Of those I saw this past year, these stood out as those I’d most highly recommend, which I call “NoteWorthy,” since there is no such thing as “best” in the Arts.

NoteWorthy Photobooks, 2021- Most Highly Recommended-

Gilles Peress, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing and the accompanying Annals of the North. Modified Steidl Photo

Gilles Peress, Whatever you say say nothing, Steidl- After 30 years in his archive, Mr. Peress has collaborated with Gerhard Steidl and the brilliant book designer Yolanda Cuomo on a book that many have already hailed as a PhotoBook for the ages. Indeed it is, but it also strikes me as a book for right now. At a time of so much strife here at home, it’s hard for me, for one, not to see elements of that in Mr. Peress’s strife filled work from a distant place and a another time.

Are there lessons from the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland in 1972 and 1980 when Mr. Peress took these Photographs we can use now? That’s for others to say. What I am sure of is that those killed remain dead. Does anything change? Well, there has been peace for almost 15 years now. While some might want to see more conflict documented among these 1,295 images, it is the images of courage to continue daily life in the midst of a world gone mad, to keep calm and carry on, as the catchphrase originally meant, that strike me just as much. Then there’s the Artistry.

Whatever you say is a master class in composition, street Photography/conflict Photography and immediate reaction, even though Mr. Peress was only in the early days of his illustrious career. So many times it seems that he anticipated an image the way Wayne Gretzky knew where the puck or his teammates would be seconds before they were. At close to 30 pounds with a wingspan when open close to 29 inches(!), it might not find its way into many homes, but every serious or institutional Art or Photography library needs it, and the accompanying 900 page annals of the north, on their sturdiest shelf.

Sara Cwynar, Glass Life, Aperture- In the world of surveillance capitalism we live in (but not here!), Sara Cwynar’s book looks and feels like a report card from the future, but it’s really a snap shot of the right now and recent past. Remember the marketing hubbub around the debut of the “Rose Gold” iPhone? Sara Cwynar made a film inspired by it called Rose Gold that’s now in MoMA’s Permanent Collection. Most of us are living in “Glass Life,” where much of our information, and some/many/most/all of our “personal connections” come from something with glass on it, which takes a good deal of our privacy in the process, providing a poor substitute for real intimacy. Her work has been most notably seen in a series of films (Soft Film, 2016, Rose Gold, 2017, and Red Film, 2018) that have been shown at MoMA and elsewhere. Stills from the films, and some of her portraits are collected in Glass Life. “But I now consider photography more of a tool in my work than a medium that I am totally devoted to,” she explained1. Though not a traditional “PhotoBook” per se, I find Glass Life stunning and ground-breaking.  

Sara Cwynar has been busy cataloging and connecting the various ways beauty and desirability are used by those in power to maintain or grow it, building a substantial image archive that, along with images she takes herself, she mines for her pieces. She first came to prominence for her eye-catching designs for the New York Times T Magazine, and has progressively built a major Art career this past decade with her Films and shows all over the world. As she approaches 10 years of solo shows, Ms. Cwynar has arrived as a doer and shaker in the Art world. Glass Life is a major, seminal, work of this young decade. 

Arthur Jafa, MAGNUMB, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark- Another Artist mostly known for his work in realms other than Photography, though in Mr. Jafa’s case, he works in a very wide range of mediums. MAGNUMB is an overview of his work with revealing interviews with the Artist included. From his sculpture of Ex-Slave Gordon on the cover, every page inside feels like it’s on fire.

Stills from his Films, and works in other medium, including his Photographs are included in one of the most important books of the year. After being called to work with Stanley Kubrick (on Eyes Wide Shut) and Spike Lee (he shot Crooklyn), Arthur Jafa has finally garnered recognition for his own work, something I don’t see that ending any time soon.

Unboxing my copy of American Geography…

Matt Black, American Geography, Thames & Hudson- Magnum Photos Member Matt Black (B. 1950) has been visiting & documenting American centers of poverty for the past six years, beginning with those around him in central California, where 1/3 of the population lives in poverty. During this time he has logged over 100,000 miles traveling to places with a poverty rate over 20% in 46 states and Puerto Rico. What he has brought back is body of work that is nothing short of comparable with that of the legendary Farm Security Administration (FSA) Photographs of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott and the rest in the 1930s, in my view, which are now icons of Photography and history.

Many of Mr. Black’s images are so stunning visually and Artistically they might be accused of distracting from their point- to show the rest of us how too many of us live. For me, it’s too hard to deny their status as Fine Art, but Mr. Black’s skill is such that he drives his point home in spades no matter the stunning Art of his craft. Lauded as a “future classic of photography” by the publisher, I’ve been watching this body of work being built the past five years and have been both stunned and mesmerized by each succeeding black & white image he has presented, so I knew this book would be a classic, without their words, the moment I learned of it. It’s not only a “future classic of photography,” it’s a classic right now.

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2021- Excellent & Under The Radar-

Elliott Verdier from Reaching for Dawn. Elliott Verdier Photo.

Elliott Verdier, Reaching for Dawn, Dunes- After bringing the world A Shaded Path in 2019 on Kirghizistan, the French documentarian who has been featured in the New York Times (including this recent historic event he covered), among other outlets, turned his large format camera on the rarely seen country of Liberia in 2019, scene of a horrific civil war from 1989 to 2003. Mr. Verdier spent two years traipsing the country far and wide creating two different bodies of work- one, of landscapes in black & white, the other of color portraits. The results are published by Dune, the imprint he co-founded, in a book in a few different kinds of paper, and some pages in silver ink, like the books of that other great documentarian, Richard Mosse. The images are accompanied by texts by singer/songwriter Gaël Faye and 2011 Liberian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee. Reaching for Dawn makes a powerful counterpoint to Whatever you say, showing how the scars of war never really go away even though the conflict may be no longer seen. A remarkable PhotoBook and accomplishment on every level, that conveys a portrait of the land and the stoic resolve and dignity of the people who call it home.

Rosalind Fox Solomon, The Forgotten, Mack Books- Another Artist who has been on my list before- for her last book. In 2018, the instant classic Liberty Theater appeared here. This one is exceptional as well. It’s so easy to get caught up in imaginary narratives as you move from page to page to not fully appreciate how remarkable the passing Photos are. The Forgotten is another book in what is now an exceptional string of PhotoBooks by Rosalind Fox Solomon published by Mack Books, joining Them, in 2014, Got to Go, 2016, and the aforementioned Liberty Theater in 2018, each of which is highly recommended. At 91, it’s hard to think of any other Photographer who’s created so many excellent books the past 5-7 years besides Ms. Fox Solomon and Gregory Halpern. Find them while you can.

A sealed copy of Electronic Landscapes. Something that is going to be very rarely seen in the future, unless it’s reprinted.

Isaac Diggs and Edward Hillel, Electronic Landscapes, +Kris Graves Projects- I live in a city where great Music was has a long and storied history. Maybe you do, too. I bet for both of us, and probably almost every other place where great Music was made, almost no documentation of it exists, particularly of its beginnings. Isaac Diggs and Edward Hillel have seen to it that when people look back and want to know more about the beginnings of Detroit’s house, techno and hip-hop resurgence in 20 or 30 years the documentation will be there. And blessed they will be to have such a well-done and extremely well-organized book to refer to. +KGP was my NoteWorthy PhotoBook Publisher for 2020, when in spite of the pandemic and the worldwide shutdown, Kris Graves & Co. managed to publish 18 books! AND Mr. Graves created work, himself, that found him on the cover of National Geographic’s Photos of the Year Issue. This is Mr. Diggs third excellent book with +KGP. Only one, his equally excellent Middle Distance, is still available. Electronic Landscapes is just about sold out as I write this.

NoteWorthy 1st PhotoBooks, 2021-

Rahim Fortune, I can’t stand to see you cry, Loose Joints- Mr. Fortune’s debut is centered around his trip home to care for his ill father. The resulting book is a poignant meditation on life and its fleeting moments captured in black & white. Having had a parent who was sick for 6 years before passing, I am unfortunately acquainted with this. Mr. Fortune’s images don’t hide the worry, but his images are full of dignity and strength, while they meditate on life, death, love and loss. A remarkable debut.

Philip Montgomery: American Mirror, Aperture. 2021 saw a number of fine books that looked back at America either the past two years, or over the past few decades, by Mitch Epstein (Property Rights), Ken Light (Course of Empire), Robert Adams (American Silence) and Peter Van Agtmael (2020 and Sorry About The War), and others. For me, Philip Montgomery: American Mirror stood out for me among them, particularly because it’s a first PhotoBook. Mr. Montgomery’s style is stark, economical and direct all the while being beautiful, regardless of his subject. At just 33, his work has already been featured in the world’s most prestigious publications from The New York Times & The New York Times Magazine, to The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, among many others. Here you can see why. While he Photographs other subjects, it only takes one look at American Mirror to see that Mr. Montgomery has all the makings of a major voice in what used to be called “Documentary Photography.” American Mirror screams “auspicious.” It’s one of those books people will be referring to while others will be desperately trying to find if it goes out of print.

NoteWorthy Retrospective, 2021-

Michael Schmidt: Photographs 1965-2014- The late German (1945-2014) is another of the many excellent Photographers who are not nearly as well known in the USA as they are in Europe. Michael Schmidt had a show, Michael Schmidt: U-NI-TY (EIN-HEIT), in 1996 at MoMA. It featured one of his most important bodies of work, created in response to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two Germanys. It’s not the only excellent book Michael Schmidt produced. Waffenruhe (Ceasefire) is widely recognized as a 20th century classic. The fine softcover reprint is gradually disappearing, so be forewarned to get it soon. Michael Schmidt: Photographs 1965-2014 provides a very well done look at all of his books and his entire career, much of which will be new to PhotoBook aficionados in the USA. Check it out and don’t wait long if you want it. It will be very expensive after it goes out of print.

Eikoh Hosoe, Mack Books– Largely a contemporary of Michael Schmidt, though on the other side of the world, Eikoh Hosoe (B.1933) is something of a well-kept secret outside of his native Japan. Inside Japan, he’s known for his fine work over a 65 year career as a Photographer in helping to create post-war Japanese Photography, and as a teacher, who counts the world-famous Photographer, Daido Moriyama, among his students. For those looking to see where Mr. Moriyama’s signature high-contrast style came from, Eikoh Hosoe will prove most illuminating. Mack has outdone themselves with this excellent, 400 page, retrospective in which everything (the layout, the covers, the inclusion of a chronology, the quality of the binding and the printing) is first rate, especially the content. It’s now possible for those of us outside Japan to get up to speed on Mr. Hosoe’s accomplishment and follow his career step by step in this beautiful book, which is likely to stand as “definitive” for at least the near future.

NoteWorthy Reissued PhotoBook, 2021-

Jason Ezkenazi, Wonderland, Red Hook Editions- I’d given up hope of seeing this book, which quickly sold out, after achieving near legendary status. Then, earlier this year Jason Ezkenazi reissued his classic, in a larger size, and I immediately jumped on the chance to get it. Now, I come to it backwards, Wonderland being Book 1 of a trilogy. I was able to get the excellent Black Garden, Book 2, and Departure Lounge, Book 3 (see NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020) last year, which only served to heighten my desire to see Book 1, Wonderland. It certainly holds up to both its reputation and the passage of time. Don’t miss it this time.

NoteWorthy Exhibition Catalog, 2021-

Zanele Muholi, Tate- The renowned Photographer, Painter & Activist received a Retrospective at the Tate, London this past year that included about 260 pieces covering her entire career. The only thing missing were her Paintings, who’s debut I recently looked at. For those of us not able to see the show, the Tate’s catalog is an essential book especially when you consider that some of her earlier books, like the excellent Faces & Phases 2006-14 and Only Half The Picture, are out of print and hard to find reasonably priced. At the moment, it’s the only way to see her early work and an overview of her whole accomplishment to this point.

NoteWorthy Photobook of 2018 I Missed- Mea Culpa!-

A word of warning- New, sealed copies, like this one, are getting quite hard to find.

Zanele Muholi, Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Aperture, 2018- Speaking of Ms. Muholi, HOW did I not include this in my 2018 NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2018 piece?

Zanele Muholi, from Brave Beauties and Somnyama Ngonyama (‘Hail, the Dark Lioness’), at Yancey Richardson, October, 2017

I had seen some of the work included in it at Yancey Richardson in 2017 and been stunned by it. The answer- the first printing sold out before I could get a copy. Suffice it to say that it is one of the masterpieces of the PhotoBook genre published this past decade. Though she has done other books and they are all worth seeking out, if she had only done this book, it would be sufficient to secure her place among the world’s great living portraitists- in any medium. Still, that only enhances the value of her ground-breaking work as an activist documenting over-looked and at risk communities.

NoteWorthy PhotoBook After My Own Heart, 2021-

Ahndraya Parlato, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, Mack Books- Parents aren’t supposed to leave their kids. At least that’s what their kids believe. Even into adulthood. So, few kids think about the death of their parent, none are prepared to lose one, or both. In my experience, even after a long terminal illness, the passing comes as a big shock. When one’s parent commits suicide, it can feel like abandonment. The “victim” in this case is NOT the deceased. It is those Mom or Dad left behind. Being an offspring of one parental suicide, I am one of those victims, like Ahndraya Parlato is. No one has spoken for us- writer, novelist, or Artist, until Ms. Parlato braved this minefield, accompanied by her children, to create a book that is at once extremely personal, yet expresses the permanence of loss that all parental suicide victims live with. Her wonderful Photography (most recently seen in 2016’s excellent A SPECTACLE AND NOTHING STRANGE), is here accompanied by her writing, the two dialoging with, and enhancing, the other at every turn of the page. The loss is tinged with a longing I know too well, in the form of a light from a distant star, or creating work with her mother’s ashes.

Her children provide another dimension, and something more- hope. Had they been absent, the book might have been darker, but more narrowly focused. Instead, they show that Ms. Parlato is not alone in this struggle to survive and overcome the past that never ends. Yet, with them comes fear. While all of us live with fear in our daily lives (my big one is being hit by an ever-present bike on the sidewalks or streets of Manhattan). In both our cases, it is the unexpected sudden and life-altering event that would seem to lie underneath them. I have no idea what it’s like to have and to raise kids. I’ve never even held a child. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if both our fears are born in the wake of the trauma of losing a parent so suddenly and horrifically. Ahndraya’s book is THE most personal PhotoBook I saw in 2021. I applaud her courage wholeheartedly, and if creating Who is Changed… was, in part at least, an act of therapy, I only hope it helps. 

NoteWorthy PhotoBook Issued Before 2021 First Seen in 2021-

The seven volumes of Robert Frank’s Visual Diaries, 2010-17, six in a similar design- a softcover in a slipcase. The seventh is Household Inventory Record, 2013, right, designed to look like the original which was created in an actual Household Inventory Record book, so it looks different.

Robert Frank, “The Visual Diaries,” Steidl- As I wrote in my piece, The “Other” Robert Frank, I was one of the many who best knew Robert Frank from The Americans (though I had London/Wales, Moving Out, and Looking In, the latter two are not “by” Mr. Frank), before launching into trying to see as many of his “other” books as possible during the shutdown, like most of the books on this list, thanks to the USPS! The Visual Diaries is not an official title but the title the publisher, Steidl, refers to the group of seven books Mr. Frank created between 2013 and 2017 by. Now having seen about 20 of his “other” books, they each have a good deal to recommend them, and they are essential for Photographers or anyone who is trying to get an overview of Modern & Contemporary Photography, post-the publication of Mr. Frank’s The Americans in 1958 and 1959. And oh yeah, anyone trying to get a more complete picture of Robert Frank’s seminal career & accomplishment. These are as personal as one would expect from a “diary.” Filled with unpublished and familiar images over Mr. Frank’s long and productive life (he never stopped creating, which will come as news to many Americans fans), they are master classes in “How to make a great PhotoBook,” from their arrangement, page layout, and of course, the uncompromising Photos, which often seem to go out of their way to break every rule anyone else holds dear. And, unlike 99% of the other PhotoBooks I saw in 2021, the images are marvelously chosen and beautifully sequenced. None are superfluous. None weaken, or even bring down, the whole. If there is one thing most PhotoBooks I see continually fall short in, that’s it.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Diggin The New” by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros as heard on their album Rock Art & The X-Ray Style.

The Old Chelsea Post Office, May 29, 2020, fittingly half in shadow, during the height of the pandemic in NYC and during the height of the discussion about cutting the funding of the USPS. Yet, through it all, Manager Miss Lloyd and her staff showed up almost every day and persevered throughout.

This Post is dedicated to Miss Lloyd & the Staff of the Old Chelsea Post Office, NYC, which not only got books to me, but also were my first source of masks and alcohol, when there were none to be found anywhere locally. Miss Lloyd, the overall manager of this Post Office, recently retired, but not before getting her staff and her customers through the worst of the very, very dark days of the early pandemic. Thank you for your service, Miss Lloyd & Staff!

November 26, 2021- I started this post in better times and have worked on it all year. I mysteriously fell ill in September and I have been in and out of the E.R. and the hospital since. While the 21 doctors I’ve seen thus far are still trying to get to the bottom of it, some progress has been made, and my life altered as a result. I’m being monitored 24/7 as I write this, (but Sara Cwynar might remind me that we all are. ; ) ) I want to extend my thanks to everyone involved with my treatment and the staff of Mount Sinai’s Emergency Room & Hospital for their truly amazing care. Yes, even to the nurse who chastised me for working on this piece while I was hospitalized!

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/sara-cwynar/ ↩