Founded in 2007 between New York and Paris, the publisher of Je Suis une Bande de Jeunes, which specializes in limited editions of work by contemporary photographers, has just shed its skin to become Etudes Books. It’s the occasion to take a closer look at their first and second title , published in September (300 copies): Car Crash Studies by Nicolai Howalt.
The Danish photographer trains his lens on the shells of wrecked cars: sheet metal and debris crumpled into abstraction, gaping holes in the roof and doors. We see bloodstains on the steering wheel, a shoe, a pack on cigarettes in the passenger seat.
Without any sign of bodies in the typical dry Scandinavian style, Howalt’s images fascinate as much as the bloody scenes of Weegee and Metinides. With a flash of light in the darkness, the car becomes a murder weapon at a crime scene. Useless now but still intact, the laughing dashboard lights and cupholders seem almost apologetic that they weren’t a greater help, and the half-inflated airbag, that it wasn’t fast enough. Behind the shock of shattered lives, what remains is the disturbing impression of a wrecked face that won’t stop smiling.
Photography: Nicolai Howalt – Text: Torben Sangild
