Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Job opportunity: cheerleader


These are two super simple pictures.
One sees a beach, an arm and a stone.
Nothing else.

Each picture by itself is not having any sense.
But the two pictures put together tell a story.
Based on suggestion and steering the imagination of the viewer by the photographer.

The story is that the stone is laying peacefully on the beach.
But a fist is hanging in the air about to take action.
Seeing the second picture one understands that the fist has landed forcefully on the beach.
Obviously with so much power that the stone is rocketed into the sky.

While we see and understand this, at the same time somewhere in the mind we know this cannot be true.
We realize that we are manipulated.
That our visual understanding is guided through a landscape that does not exist in the reality of the scheme of things.

From 1970 to 1985 hundreds and hundreds of these pictures, called “sequences” have been made.

Basically simple ideas always performed on the beach in bright sunlight.

In March 1984 a selection of these “sequences” were published in a large book and the first copy was presented with an exhibition in the Laurence Miller Gallery in New York and a big one man show in the Art Institute in Chicago.



This book, titled “Sequences”, has been sold out for many years now.
Sometimes at book auctions or in specialised shops second hand copies can be found.

Meanwhile, frequently requests to purchase “Sequences” reach the serious photographer.
Monthly and weekly.

The latest development is that the designer of the book “Sequences”, Henrik Barents, who has a publishing company of his own now, wants to bring out the successful book again.
Designed in a new way and printed in a much better quality.

This is a fantastic continuation of the success of the sequences-work.
Images that still interest and fascinate people.
Even more than 25 years after they were made.

The process to come to a new publication has started now.
An interesting collaboration with Henrik Barents.
Having to handle a series of challenges.
For example, how to pre-finance the book in these days of dried up credit?

It is never easy to publish a photo-book.
Always there are conditions that make it difficult.
So it was in the past, is it nowadays and will it be in the future.
Whether eventually there will be a new “Sequences” photo book does not depend therefore of the current conditions.
But of the determination of the two guys that want it now.
If they want it hard enough, all challenges will be met and you will be able to enjoy a fantastic new photo book.
So, make yourself a cheerleader.

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More information about the publishing company of designer Henrik Barents, click on:
http://www.voetnoot-publishers.nl/





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