Sorry I skipped last week but I was travelling in Italy. In the meantime I have been thinking about finding an interesting book to choose for the latest review from the rather large number of new books delivered recently. Finally, after much thought, and given the current interest in her work, I settled on a very nice new retrospective book on Vanessa Winship published by Fundacion Mapfre in support of their exhibition of her work.

The fact that at the moment this book is only published in Spanish is a bit unfortunate for me as I can neither speak nor read the language and there are what looks like a series of very interesting essays on Winships’ development as a photographer in the first sections. It is this theme of Winships progression that I want to talk a little about here in addition to giving a taster on the book itself. What fascinates me personally about the book is that I feel that I can see Winship honing her skills over a period of time until she delivered last years outstanding ‘She Dances on Jackson’ which I think was easily one of the best books I have ever bought, and for me represents her very best work to date. There are a number of shots in this book from ‘Jackson’ however the print quality, while not too bad, falls way short of the exceptional quality achieved by Mack who published the ‘Jackson’ book and this is unfortunate as it fails to show these very beautiful images at their best. Its getting a little hard to find but I would strongly urge anyone who likes what they see here to try to get She Dances on Jackson, you won’t regret it.

The book on review here was published as part of a retrospective exhibition for Winship in Madrid and I believe it runs until the end of this month so if you are in that neck of the woods, get yourself along there. Back to the photographs and the stylistic progression that I wanted to touch on. What I am really struck with here can be divided into three phases for ease of comparison. Firstly, there is Winship the documentary photographer where she is detached from the subjects and outside of the situations being photographed.

These are top drawer for that particular genre and stand comparison with two other of my favourite photographers who have photographed in these regions; Jason Eskenazi and Nikos Economopoulos whose ‘Wonderland’ and ‘Balkanlarda’ respectively are two of the finest examples of interpretation of these people in documentary style that you can find. I think that several of Winship’s shots stand up very well in that company and you can see examples from this period in the first section of the book.

Then a distinct change begins to occur and the documentary style falls away to be replaced by photos like this which begin to appear in a direct change of approach where the subject is clearly engaged in the photographic process as opposed to being external. I was lucky enough to have attended a workshop with Anders Petersen recently and he showed a wonderful movie about Latvian photographer Inta Ruka who also shoots almost exclusively in this way where the subject is fully engaged with and aware of the photographer. Inta is clearly a master of this style and her life story is heart rending but I have to say that for my money Winship gets at something more in her subjects and creates a subtle depth of character that is quite exceptional. I think you can begin to see this in the example I have chosen here but it really comes home in her study of America in the Jackson book.

I think that these photos mark a hugely significant change in approach by Winship and you can read more about her thinking in recent online interviews in the BJP and lensculture which you can easily search out if you are interested. What I believe personally is that this is phase two in the progression and its about honing the approach and skill of reflecting her ideas in these portraits that was to deliver big time in She Dances on Jackson where the portraits have a relevance and subtlety that isn’t quite there in the slightly earlier work. Additionally at this phase we see the landscape and supporting scenes that are so important to her work being refined.

Then in the third phase it all comes together where the landscapes and revealing portraits blend beatifully into the highly accomplished She Dances on Jackson. The portraits of the American people that Winship has taken touch on almost every aspect of American society and culture and they are elegantly sequenced with the gorgeous land and city scape shots.

I also personally believe that Winship has created some of the most revealing contemporary portraits of Americans and their longings, fears and apprehensions. These portraits are for me totally iconic and will only improve with age. I am convinced that we will be looking back in twenty years time at this work as an absolute classic.

One of the lovely things about a retrospective like this is that the artists work is shown in a representative way and there are also two sections in here on Winships landscape only works, ‘Humber’ from 2010 and 2014’s ‘Almeria, Where Gold Was Found’. I have to say that these are very nice, thoughtful pieces of work with Humber being my personal favourite but in the absence of the subtle but powerful and insightful portraits I don’t think that they have the drive and creative completeness of the other works.

Finally, I want to bring this short review to a close with a return to the cover shot from this book which interestingly is the final portrait shot in ‘She Dances on Jackson’. This for me captures the current essence of America, the evolutionary emergence of a new American who has very different cultural aspirations but is somewhat apprehensive despite their youth, it seems to me like it could go either way.

In conclusion, a very nice introduction to Vanessa Winship’s gorgeous photography which, although a bit patchy by its very nature, largely achieves its objectives. I think if you have anything more than a passing interest in her work it would be better to buy the original books to see the complete sequences and structures. This is a little bit of a ‘greatest hits’ book and I am not sure that is always a good thing. All things considered though a very good value and interesting read.

Colin Steel 10th August 2014

After some decent feedback from the last post, I decided to push on with the Sunday Photo-book slot but this time with a return to much safer territory for me personally with Mario Giacomelli’s The Black is Waiting for the White.

The Black is Waiting for the White

First of all, what a great name for a photography book, says it all in this case. The book in question is new to me and unbelievably, so is Giacomelli as a photographer. As someone who’s photographic tastes developed around the contrasty Japanese classic and contemporary photographers, and initially the early work of Roger Ballen, I find it incredible that I was unaware of this marvellous photographer who seems to bring everything I like and admire into his work, big thanks to JH Engstrom and Margot Wallard for bringing this to my attention as something I might like. The book being looked at here is an epic journey from Giacomelli’s very earliest photos in his home town of Senigallia through his incredible graphic landscapes, and on to the more widely recognisable priests in the snow, Lourdes pilgrims, hospice series and ending in what I can only say is a set of surrealist type psychologically derived photos that out-Ballen Ballen at his own game !!!

This is a meaty book and I don’t think it is digestible in one sitting. What I prefer to do is look at it in the respective logical sections which the book is broadly divided into, and each section is accompanied by a nice essay by various critics and writers who have admired and understood the context for Giacomelli’s art, and art it is believe me. There is an astonishing freshness and modernity to much of his more abstract and personal work that belies the simple background story of his life emerging as a photographic talent in post-war Italy.

One thing that has struck me most about this complete history of Giacomelli’s work is the consistency of approach almost from day one. Giacomelli is as merciless on mid-tones as Nakahira or Moriyama at their best, in other words they are mostly eradicated in favour of inky black and stark, blinding white. Throughout his work that is his signature stamp and, despite the apparently simple concept of using only these basic elements, I personally believe that this is an extremely difficult style to work with, let alone maintain through a lifetimes work. Especially when you consider the out and out, sustained quality of the imagery on show.

Given the size and scale of this collection I think its always easy to forget that this is a lifetimes work and what we are looking at is only a representative selection. For that reason however I think its a tribute to both Giacomelli and the books editors that this works so well and cohesively over the extensive period covered. By way of contrast, I have also been reading Chang Chao-Tang’s huge set which was issued to comemorate his recent Taiwan exhibition and for me, and please remember this is just my personal opinion, the work lacks that end to end consistency. There is a weak beginning of historical type photos and then the incredible 1962-65 period which just bursts with creativity and iconic photography and then the standard falls of again towards the current day. This might sound hypercritical as ‘the standard’ for these photographers is of course very high in the first place, the point I am trying to make is that Giacomelli is one of the few artists that seems to have been able to move through distinctly different subject matters over his lifetime without compromising the creative level of his work and thats’ what makes him so special in my eyes.

Bearing in mind that my objective with these short reviews is simply to highlight to my friends a book or artist that they may not be familiar with, I am not trying to do any in depth analysis of the artist or their motivations, this is done admirabley in this particular book by people much better qualified to do so than me . What I would like to do in this case though is simply choose some photographs from some of the distinct phases of subject matter or concepts that Giacomelli chose to work on in his lifetime to illustrate first of all the stylistic linkage and secondly, the out and out consistency of inspirational creative touch that he brought to whatever subject he was working on.

1954, Mia moglie & Il misantropo

This is a very early pair of images and the reason I included them is that you can easily see that even very early in his career Giacomelli was capable of insightful photography, particularly in the right hand image which for me has the seeds of many of the ideas that he was to develop later on.

1977-2000 Presa di coscienza sulla natura

I had a real challenge here to choose an example from Giacomelli’s incredible range of graphic landscape shots however I settled on this photograph which I think is a particularly nice shot that will give some idea as to the originality and creativity that he was capable of at that time.

1954-1968 Verra la Morte e avra i tuoi occhi

I think more than anything this shot begins to show the depth of Giacomelli’s sensitivity and range as a photographer. The translation of the title of this shot from his Senigallia’s hospice series is, as I understand it, Death will come and will have your eyes. I think when you begin to look at these images the landscape and surrealist shots begin to take on a new meaning and that is one of the beauties of a grand scale book such as this.

1960 Un uoma, una donna, u amore

Here we see a little bit of the more poetic side of the man. This shot is for me grounded in realism, but obviously tender and passionate and I included it as a direct contrast to the more surrealistic shots that were to come.

1964-1966 La buona terra

The good earth. I don’t think that I have ever seen any photographer shoot the rural countryside in this way. This is as close as Giacomelli ever gets to a more pure documentary style of photography and yet its somehow not, the graphical style and surreal structure of the photograph lifts it well out of that genre for my take on it.

1994-1995 La notte lava la mente

Night washes the mind. This shot is taken from a section that is one of my personal favourites in the book and its titled Photography as Poetry (and Philosophy) by Goffredo Fofi. Fofi’s interpretation is that as Giacomelli nears the end of the journey, he camly and quietly abandons the figurative for the abstract, for la notte che lava la mente, for the photography of thoughts, those “thoughts that are continually in motion”. I know what Fofi means and of course contributors to these books have the challenge of writing something dramatic and insightful to support their personal selections, however, I think that statement denies the utter beauty of these photographs which deserve to be recognised as such.

1977-2000 Presa di coscienza sulla natura

I wanted to finish this quick look at Giacomelli’s The Black is Waiting for the White with a return to the cover photo for the book. Taken from the ’ Awareness of Nature’ series what I particulrly like about this photograph is that it is a close as any in the book to merging a number of Giacomelli’s favourite subject themes, the land, transient thought and rural life with his usual bold, graphic tones. I don’t think this is the books strongest image by a long way and I have missed out whole sections from this snapshot including his more famous novices in the snow and Lourdes pilgrims, but somehow I think that the books editors choose this image wisely as it is very representative of the talent of this particularly unique photographer.

An image is soul, matter, time, space, a chance for us to look. Traces proving our existence and the sign of a culture constantly experiencing the rhythms that sustain memory, history and the rules of knowledge.
Mario Giacomelli

Well thats it for this snapshot of another recent book purchase. As before, my aim here is simply to raise awareness of a photographer and book that my friends may not be aware of so I hope it serves a purpose on that level at least. I have had an absolute frenzy of buying recently so have loads of new books to share over the coming weeks.

Colin Steel Sunday 20th July 2014

Tokyo, Tokyo, home of Moriyama and Nakahiri, deep blacks and stark whites, grainy, blurred, shocking contrasts over a quirky but sensual rhythm .

Tokyo has long held a strange magnetism for me but it has been a long and uncomfortable path to even get to the beginning of understanding this magnificently complex city and its wonderful people. I have been travelling there for over six years and trying to make sense of it photographically for the last two years. It bewilders me, hurts me, loves me but above all enthrals me like no other city I know of. Its incredible complexity and compression of space creates a system of polite mannerism that is at wild contrast with the creativity of many of its artists who, for me, have pushed the boundaries of photography with their beat poem rhythms and blatant disregard of conventional structures. I feel honoured to tread the same streets of Shinjuku and Shibuya as Daido and stop into the tiny bars drinking and searching for the internal buzz that will free me from my rational straightjacket. I like to think that every city I visit has a rhythm and Tokyo is my Bill Evans. It has a perfect, hushed, mellow, modal meandering that is all to infrequently punctuated by strange ventures into the upper registers for that short, sharp thrill and excited recognition of something that we all have and glimpse only so very, very rarely. This is what photography is to me now, the never ending search for encounters with that fleeting spirituality that combines shapes, light, dark, expressions, movements, glances and beauty into sudden realisation of the perfection that exists in our imperfect world, play on Bill Evans…………………