I must admit that I am kind of shocked seeing Storch’s work in grainy, dissolved Anders Petersen/Yutaka Takanashi-esque monochrome. Having been a massive fan of his lushly saturated Keepers of the Ocean book in color, published by Disko Bay Books just a few years ago, I feel quite different about this despite the similar characters and landscape. That is not to say that I do not like it, just that I have to approach it differently. I think what I like about Necromancer is that it almost feels like a thick book of screen prints and presents an interesting resolved object and edit for what would be, in color, somewhat lacking in comparison to the previous title. That is not to suggest that this is not a good follow-up, but rather that the book has different aims and does not impose Storch’s life as much; though some of his family/girlfriend and himself do appear in the book, I am left more with an unresolved, open, and barren Greenland landscape, which I know Storch to be very fond of having spoken to him previously for Nearest Truth.
The care and friendliness found in Keepers of the Ocean is subverted here for something more existential, more tenuous, as though to suggest a more ominous connection to the ancestral land that Storch lives on. The title Necromancer is a clear indication that what Storch is channeling is not the exuberance of living, but instead a communication with the dead. Necromancy is, after all, a rapport with those who have come before and those who have since left this plane of existence with a living channel. It roots one’s experience to something greater and though it is often associated with esoteric/occult tendencies, I believe there is a way to understand necromancy as something divined from the natural world as opposed to voices, table-rapping, or any other construction that suggests a spiritual matter left only in the hands whose divination can make the great voice material and audible.
The great voice is not visual, though I have suggested that it is material. In the photographs that Storch has produced, I think of the great starchy noise that carries across them as having an essence, hence the material value that I suggest. Like the crackle of an old radio and the way in which voices creak through as phenomenon, often embarking as signals lost over the course of time, decades, and spanning the cultural and political moments that they transcend, electric voice phenomenon or EVPs are considered irresolute, and people think of them as a proof of connection to other portals, dimensions, and worlds that have previously existed. It has been written about at length and though it does rely on some amount of hokum in some cases, the idea of voices, drenched in static, carried over from transmission long ago is in fact, real and acknowledged. It suggests a communication that is ancient and from the core of the earth itself.
The static in Storch’s photographs is not from EVPs, but their noise and grain allude to a condition that can be seen as a transmission, digital, if not radio noise that we might acknowledge as a form of communication. This stated, I know that the artist uses digital cameras, often point and shoot in format which adds to the dissolving nature of these images with its digital artifacts. He is not partial to gear, or worried about technical considerations, preferring to function in the cold and drastic climate as well as in the interior with tools that are compact and mobile. This and the choice of printing method give the images a grainy look not unlike the images of Jacob Aue Sobol (had to be said) or Anders Petersen. Yet, with Storch’s images, even with the grain associated with the other two artists is something more punishing, more optically challenged, and hard to decipher-it is a book that is willfully obtuse in its details.
Whether the book succeeds in its delivery regarding necromancy or other forms of communication with the dead, it is not for me to say. In some regards, this is an extension of Keepers of the Ocean, but is not necessarily demanding of the same type of premise, nor does it hint at the intimacy found in that book. Instead, it is a clever way in which to promote the artist with a second book that adds a layer of grit and dirt to an otherwise endearing subject matter of the artist’s family life. It would be remiss of me not to mention that the book comes at a time in which the artist has been selected for inclusion in the 2024 Venice Biennale. It is an opportune time to release a book like and though I will make some assumptions that this was part of the motivation, Marrow Press has delivered and interesting and complete object that extends the artist’s career and vision into similar, if tuned slightly differently. I look forward to more titles from Marrow Press and from Inuuteq.