The magnificent, energetic book ECAL PHOTOGRAPHY (Hatje Cantz) was released to coincide with an exhibition at the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa in Paris. The 300 large-format pages highlight the work of young photographers at the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, whose photography department is one of the world’s most renowned.
Printed on rough fanzine paper, some works are a little too reminiscent of Bernd and Hilla Becher, and it’s difficult to identify a thematic or aesthetic unity, although collage, psychedelic still life and troubled gender concept are common.
The design by Julien Gallico and Olga Parker gives this a dynamic life. Another relationship to narrative feeds these works: a surrealist approach that challenges the viewer, an appeal to the absurd and ellipsis that poses the question of meaning and of the “afterimage.” We’re never too far from a cinematic starting point, at least in the reader’s mind. These exquisite corpses, technically flawless and abstruse, call to mind vanitas paintings and a feeling of surrounding nothingness: Robinson Crusoe’s interior deserted island, expanded to infinity
ECAL Photography
Hatje Cantz
296 pages
50 €
More informations :
http://www.hatjecantz.de/cal-5871-1.html
