Charles Johnstone The Court At High Elms

  Sometimes, all it takes is a corner and a series of evaporating shadows to serve as a conduit to greater understanding of the built environment and all the human activity that has transpired within it. In studying Charles Johnstone’s court photography, what is exceptionally evident is the simplicity with which the rendering of space […]

John Lehr The Last Things

This is certainly one of the most misleading photobooks that I have seen in some time, despite being a fan of the artist’s previous book. What appears on the outside as a simple reading of America’s vernacular signage is, in fact, a kind of premonition, or perhaps an acknowledgement of where things stand along the […]

Ruth Lauer Manenti 4 Sides of the Table

It is hard to deny the strange feeling of sharing a room with one of your loved ones who has passed on. The implicit silence is an acknowledgement of toil’s end, though at the time, the personal trauma overtakes this thought in the mind of the living. It casts small echoes. Of course, there is […]

Victor Sira Europass

Notes for a Ritual of Photography Gone Extinct Victor Sira, in his exhibition catalog/new book Europass, published by his publishing house, bookdummypress, examines a common theme in travel photography. The book is based on a series of trips the Venezuelan artist took in Europe from 2001 to 2006, which coincided with the shift from the […]

Sam Hutchinson Charred Cell

From the publisher or author or both Charred Cell is formed from a period of visual research into the clinical estrangement of domestic environments- the work eludes to a cynicism that coexists alongside enlightenment, stuck between an escapist alternative of the present, and the tension that fluctuates between trauma and awakening. Suggestions of manipulation, both physical and emotional, arise […]

Thomas Boivin Place de la République

    Place de la République is a central meeting point in Paris. Several underground metro lines stop at its station, and its wide-open square is a gathering place for many people, particularly younger people. When you first enter the square, there is a flurry of activity, but it never feels overly crowded. Suppose you […]

Daniel Shea Distribution

If ever the premise of a body of work was betrayed by its execution, this is that work. I should clarify that this statement is not intended as a pejorative, but rather to note that the simplicity of the means in Shea’s initial premise is a bit of a false lead. It starts with a […]

Pas de Culte Roman Kienjet & Willem Van Zoetendaal

Growing up in the 90s, transgression in art, as far as I understood, stemmed from the oppressive neoliberalist tendencies carried over from the 80s. Degrees of Thatcherism and Reaganism haunted the landscape of artistry, alongside many questions arising from social issues concerning the body. Gay rights and the grappling of feminism, and more essentially, its […]

Florian Merdes Steamcracker

  What strikes me as an interesting premise in Florian Merdes’s book Steamcracker is the enforced myopic rendering of details and patterns, which turns the book and its intense sequences into something minutely chaotic. There is a world underneath the surface of things, a rhythm and a dedication to line that emanates in Florian’s book. […]