Henry Leutwyler, Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson Steidl, 2010 Prior to Michael Jackson�s death, Henry Leutwyler photographed crates of artifacts removed from Jackson�s Neverland ranch in California. The resulting series of photographs document the inner turmoil of the public person who chose to model his private life on Peter Pan and the Lost Boys � children who never wanted to grow up. Leutwyler�s unemotional portraits are almost too intimate to behold, but when one digs beneath the surface, what emerges is the profound truth of a star�s sequestered reality. Leutwyler�s photographs unearth the �Lost Boy� forced to leave Neverland, and now these still lifes are as close as anyone will ever get to what Jackson once had, and ultimately left behind. �I have an urge to investigate people I have never met� says Swiss-born Henry Leutwyler. With twenty-five years experience creating portraits that document the famous and powerful, he has turned his gaze on the belongings that surround the individual. A self-taught youth who began his career by photographing �cheese and chocolates�, Leutwyler is a visual archaeologist. His work drills deep, allowing the objects to reveal more than the subjects themselves. Hardcover, 8 x 11 inches, 96 pages 150.00 Signed First edition copies are sold out. A limited amount of signed copies are available at the gallery. Thomas Allen, Uncovered Aperture Foundation, 2007 Foreword by Chip Kidd Thomas Allen selects the pulpiest of pulp paperbacks and then lovingly slices out a figure from the cover, gently folds it into position, and constructs a witty scene around it. In Thirst, a sultry dame reaches from her cover toward a guy with a bottle on a nearby volume; in Teeter a man careens toward the edge of a stack of paperbacks ready to topple. Inspired by a love of pop-up books, Allen revels in taking on different roles in creating his scenarios: "In addition to being a photographer, I play talent scout, casting director, stage manager, lighting supervisor, and film editor." He photographs these engaging tableaux in shallow focus, rendering his prints with the dreamy effect seen in the View-Master stereoscopic toy that also inspired him. Well suited to the three-dimensional heft of a board book, the images in Uncovered are combined into an almost toylike object that will delight photography lovers, graphic designers, and bibliophiles with a sense of humor. 24.95 Signed Martin Klimas, Flowers 2008 Essay by Matthias Harder from the German by Jeanne Haunschlid The florist's bouquet is once again gaining in popularity as a token a guest offers his host, whether friend or relation. Very quickly a suitable vase is sought among the selection of colored or transparent, rotund or angular ones at hand. Suddenly the vase explodes. Is it a calculated shock or a plain and simple provocation when Martin Klimas blows our bourgeois conventions to pieces? The main object in his pictures is an arrangement of lowers in a vase: tulips or carnations, orchids or amaryllis. These are placed squarely at the picture's center against a neutral, mostly monochrome background: no other detail distracts the attention of the viewer. It all reminds us of classical studio and product photography, something Klimas is very well acquainted with. Then with spring-powered firing device, the Dusseldorf photographer himself aims at the vase, which thus bursts into a thousand pieces. Klimas makes just one photo, set off by the noise the projectile makes on impact. In the next fraction of a second, the flowers - without the support of the vase - will be thrown sideways or tumble to the ground, but this is a sight the photographer spares us. A photo directly before the shot, i.e., of the flower sill-life alone, would be photographically just as uninteresting as one that showed the aftermath of the final fragmentation, when flowers and vase shards have fallen to the ground. And within a sequence of the entire event - that is, inclusive of all the aesthetic, in-between stages - viewers would surely decide on the same shot that Klimas favors. However, the photographer does not choose from different variations of the nearly same situation, but accepts the single take as the final image only when the tension between the static and the dynamic is to him in sync. Chance, too, helps bring about the production of the photo. Hardcover, 12.5 x 9.5 inches, 40 pages Sold Out Sage Sohier, Perfectible Worlds Photolucida, 2007 Essay by John Beardsley Perfectible Worlds is about people's private passions and obsessions. Begun soon after 9/11/01, the series portrays people transported into worlds and activities over which they have near-total control. The photographs, made from medium-format negatives, range from portraits of some who make extravagant miniature worlds, to others who have extraordinary collections or who immerse themselves in unusual pursuits. Each photograph is the discovery of a particular world an individual has found or created for himself - a private world that few are privileged to see. The series began with a picture I took of a friend working on his model railroad. Expanding over twenty years he has owned his house, his railroad has taken over the entire basement. When he goes down to work on it, he leaves behind both his professional and family life. He need satisfy only himself, and exercises complete control over what he has made. This kind of absorption - what we do to console ourselves - struck me as a subject worthy of exploration. We're all fascinated with other people's passions - what they do in their spare time to satisfy an inner need. These constructions, collections, or activities are quirky, often beautiful, and almost always ends in themselves. My ambition has been to reveal the particularity and intensity of these acts and creations, and also to capture individuals' engagements in the midst of them. Their worlds - for a fleeting instant, and through their generosity - become mine...and now, perhaps, yours. Paperback, 8.5 x 10 inches, 64 pages 24.00 Signed Andrea Mastrovito, Paper Tigers 2008 Essays by Paul Ardenne, Andrea Bruciati, Paolo Colombo, Barbara Polla, & Joseph del Pesco Andrea Mastrovito's work can be interpreted on several different levels, whether on a purely sensorial surface approach or from the point of view of a metalinguistic reflection based on the principle of uncertainty. For this most definitely postmodern artist, all human knowledge enjoys the same status and consideration, which makes the non-choice of means of expression understandable. The fact that our world is overpopulated with images, and every creative gesture has already been relentlessly performed and may be presented as a reiteration or distortion, this constitutes the very framework of our modernity where the temporary nature of imagination lends itself so easily to an exhaustion and contortion of the modern. I like to think of Mastrovito's work as a dynamic vision that is both descendant and actual development of a certain cultural context. Every young Italian artist in the "90s embraced the melancholic thinking of philosopher Gianni Vattimo, who presented the notion of ephemerality as the new interpretation of the over-mediated post modern world. Paperback, 8.5 x 6 inches, 128 pages Jessica Dimmock, The Ninth Floor Contrasto, 2007 Foreword by Max Kozloff The Ninth Floor is just like any other floor in a Manhattan building. But in this case it is the apartment where a group of addicts buy and sell drugs, sleep, argue, make love and fight. For almost three years Jessica Dimmock followed the stories of the ninth floor and of its residents. Many have photographed the tragedy of the world of drugs, but the strength of these images gives a new and extraordinary account, both intimate and raw. The 3 bedroom apartment was leased by Joe Smith, 68. In the 70's Joe had been a player in the downtown art scene. Joe subleased a room to a young hustler named Joey; soon Joey was joined by his brother Mike, Mike's girlfriend Jesse, and many others. When I met this group in the fall of 2004 Joe no longer had a bedroom in his apartment. He stayed on the couch in hopes of gaining rent. In exchange for use of his apartment, people contributed money at first, then just bags of heroin, several cigarettes, a teaspoon of methadone or a daily beer. Unable to inject himself, Joe grew dependent on these young residents to shoot him up. Mike and Jesse occupied the largest room in the front of the apartment, Dionn another, Joey the third. Charlie, then Natasha slept in a hidden closet behind a moveable bookcase. And in every corner, of every room, there were others, all of whom were users. The mood inside was muffled, slow, secretive and sick, becalmed by a septic hush. Hardcover, 10.5 x 8 inches, 165 pages 38.00 Signed Jona Frank: High School Arenas Street Publishing, 2004 Forward by Gus Van Sant For nearly a decade, award-winning filmmaker and photographer Jona Frank has examined the American Adolescent experience. In her first large-format book of portraiture photography, High School, Frank examines the identity and conformity issues of our formative years. Innocent, revealing and fresh, these color portraits capture the turbulent period of experimentation and role-playing teenagers confront as they attempt to find their place in the social landscape. Hardcover, 10 x 13 inches, 132 pages 35.00 Signed Rosalind Solomon, Chapalingas Steidl, 2003 Essays by Ingrid Sischy, Susanne Lange and Gabriele Conrad-Schol Rosalind Solomon takes pictures of people and their relationships with each other. Whether well-known figures or ordinary people, her subjects appear as they go about their daily lives, celebrating at parties, engaging in moments private and public. Cultural and social contrasts characterize the photographer's images, captured during numerous trips across the United States and around the world since the 1970s. The pictures tell tales of rootedness and loneliness, poverty and affluence, moments of hope and moments of happiness. In Chapalingas, Solomon has grouped her photographs into associative categories such as Food, Wheels, Splits, Hearts, Play and Faith, prompting the viewer to compare the motifs present in her more than 160 images. Accompanied by Solomon's poetic text, which sheds light on the contexts in which her photographs were taken and the personal thoughts they engendered. Hardcover, 9.75 x 11.25 inches, 461 pages, 204 duotone plates 65.00 Signed Stephen Aldrich & Walton Mendelson, Metaphysics in Jars Nazraeli Press, 2001 Using 19th-century Victorian woodcuts as their source material, scissors, film and paper as their tools, and metaphysics as their master, Aldrich and Mendelson create mind-bending worlds of rhythm and narration. Metaphysics in Jars is published in a first edition of 1,000 copies, printed in duotone and bound in cloth with a tipped-in cover plate. Hardcover, 10 x 12 inches, 92 pages, 52 duotone plates 75.00 Signed New Releases, Thomas Allen Foley, 2006 This catalogue accompanies Allen's exhibition "New Releases". Inspired by a View-master and "pop-up" books as a child, Allen became interested in recreating these three-dimensional experiences by using old books and pulp fiction paperbacks as still-life subjects. Allen gently cuts around the shape of his figures, physically releasing them from their two-dimensional surface. They are brought to life from their pages and covers with detailed lighting and a thin focus. Pulled and positioned, their intended drama comes to life. In his newest body of work, Allen explores more detailed narratives involving love triangles and relationships accentuated with moments of voyeurism, homoeroticism, and unrequited love. Paperback, 5 x 7 inches, 34 pages 10.00 Signed Alexander Orion, Metabiotica Via Das Artes, 2006 Alexandre Orion wants his graffiti to remain simple and understandable. He comes from the Brazilian tradition of pichacao (from piche, meaning tar) with its simple, bold and black line lettering. Traditional pichacao is a kind of shout for visibility, with no ambitions of being art. It is an attempt to protest against the way Brazilians live as a third world culture, but is often seen as too agressive and illegible. Orion is part of a new generation of graffiti artists who expand upon this notion and search for greater artistic meaning while still reflecting on cultural disparity in the metropolis. Orion strategically creates these graffiti paintings and then hides himself, waiting to photograph the precise moment when an unknowing subject meets his image. His contemporary means of urban intervention turns the day-to-day life of passers-by into moments of unsuspecting joy, anguish, elation and danger. The photograph is the record of the event. His graffiti acts as a backdrop for a much larger conceptual ploy, which translates into a photograph as its resonant document. Paperback, 12 x 12 inches, 77 pages 45.00 Signed Margaret de Lange, Daughters Trolley, 2009 In her series entitled Daughters, Margaret M. de Lange presents black-and-white photographs taken of her two daughters during the summers of their childhood. Though the project began in 1993 and continued through 2002, it wasn’t until both daughters were old enough to grant their permission that de Lange took the step of exhibiting the work. The images depict the two girls enjoying their summers out of doors, barefoot and often bare-bodied, in a dark and grainy, high-contrast style. In the photographs, the children seem to be a part of the nature around them, with dirt and grass clinging to knees and feet, with hoods of animal skin; they become like the creatures of Scandinavian folklore that, as de Lange explains, “were said to appear at twilight, and were always beautiful, but often evil as well.” And so we view the daughters, captured as they linger in a hazy half-darkness, in that time between day and night and an age between child and adult, exploring, discovering, and experiencing all of those little adventures which amount to growing up. These “creatures” exhibit their initiated ways through various little clues: dead birds hanging from string, bold stares from beneath furry capes. All together, the effect is unabashedly dark and earthy, yet calm and elegantly matter-of-fact. As for the daughters, the photographs represent a precious conservation of memory. “She has preserved random pieces of our childhood, and we treasure those moments,” says Jannicke de Lange, speaking for herself and her younger sister, Catherine. Paperback, 9 x 13 inches, 58 pages 45.00 Richard Barnes, Animal Logic Princeton Architectural Press, 2009 A buffalo stands horns to head with a man who is calmly vacuuming the snow-covered plains beneath its feet. A herd of plastic-wrapped zebras surrounds a giraffe, while a man on scaffolding above paints them a lovely trompe l'oeil sky. Photographer Richard Barnes has spent more than ten years documenting the way we assemble, contain, and catalog the natural world. Barnes's behind-the-scenes photographs are haunting reminders that there is nothing natural about a natural history museum. Animal Logic, Barnes's first monograph, collects four related species of his photographic work that touch on themes relevant to science, history, archaeology, and architecture. Through his lens, sights and objects normally hidden from public view—half-installed dioramas, partially wrapped specimens, anatomical models, exploded skulls, and taxidermied animals in shipping crates—take on a strange beauty. Barnes peels back layers of artifice to reveal the tangle of artistry, craftsmanship, and curatorial decisions inside every lifelike diorama and meticulously arranged glass case. Animal Logic investigates both the human desire to construct artificial worlds for the wild and the haunting and poignant worlds the real wild constructs. Barnes's camera freezes migrating starlings to reveal the visual poetry hidden inside their dense formations. His extraordinary photographs of birds' nests constructed from detritus—string, plastic, milkweed, tinsel, hair, dental floss, pine needles—sculpturally embody our often complicated relationship with nature. Animal Logic presents more than 120 of Barnes's photographs and includes essays by Jonathan Rosen of the New York Times and curator Susan Yelavich, which explore the themes that emerge from Barnes's unique body of work. Hardcover, 12 x 11 inches, 160 pages 65.00