Adam Fuss [Hardcover]

Eugenia Parry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

With Jacques-Louis Daguerre, William Talbot Fox, Etienne Jules-Marey and William Blake as his predecessors, Adam Fuss creates photograms and daguerreotypes that evoke a general poetic and spiritual vision akin to urbanites of the 1800s, people who have lost contact with nature and God. While technically seeking to refine the beginnings of photography, Fuss attempts, in the 100 new works presented here, to record life and death. Colorful spirals created by pendulums lead into great depths; snakes create geometric waves in water; loving pairs of rabbits appear in silhouette; a hunched woman cries; sunflowers sprout withered leaves and broken stems; otherwise placid water bears the concentric marks of water drops; the shadows of silvery children's clothing hover in mid-air; light reflects on birds in flight--and all, for Fuss, mark the simultaneous presence and absence of the corporeal under the title My Ghost.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This beautiful book is a rare combination: the most exquisite art paired with an essay of equal value. Adam Fuss's hauntingly mysterious photos, made without cameras through a variety of direct means, began to receive a good deal of critical attention around 1990 (when the artist was not yet 30). Eugenia Parry is a learned, experienced, prizewinning author of essays on French calotypes, Joel-Peter Witkin, the monotypes of Edgar Degas, and other subjects. In the same way that Fuss's photographs transcend the natural world while being profoundly enveloped in it, Parry's writing is nuanced and poetic, yet extremely informative. Her long, satisfyingly rich essay here delineates Fuss's childhood, his family life, his earliest impulses toward image-making, his love-hate relationship with cameras, and his working methods, and gently suggests connections between Fuss's experiences and his aesthetic. She incorporates Sufi hymns, English poetry, and a number of pungent quotes from the artist to create a short biography that should stand as a model for evoking the process, internal as well as external, of becoming an artist. The 57 plates of Fuss's lovely, enigmatic images of light, water, birds, babies, tangled roots, sunflowers, children, and stained glass windows are printed on thick white paper. This quiet, perfect book is already a classic. --Peggy Moorman

From Library Journal

Fuss has created some of the most exquisite photography of the last two decades. By laying objects directly on photosensitive materials he bypasses the mechanism of the camera and places greater emphasis on process?both bringing the artist closer to his work and sacrificing some of his control. Utilizing this photogram technique pioneered by Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy, his works are nonetheless innovative and singular. Taking rabbit entrails, sunflowers, or stained glass windows as the raw materials, the 57 plates reproduced here range from pure abstractions to representational works, from subdued pastel-hued monochromes to multicolored iridescent images, but they are always beautiful. Art historian Parry contributes a cogent essay focusing on the rich metaphors and allusions in the works. An exquisitely produced book from a new small press specializing in photography, this first substantial monograph on Fuss is recommended for all collections with an interest in contemporary photography or history of photography.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Arena Editions; 1st edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965728013
• ISBN-13: 978-0965728010
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,648,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Essence Imprints, April 14, 2011

By 

Chris Jurek - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adam Fuss (Hardcover)

Adam Fuss's self-titled book is about life, death and various cultural and personal views of spirituality. Much like an autobiography in words and pictures, the book catalogs Fuss's progression as he explores the world around him while questioning what it means to "exist."

The book starts out with a biography of Fuss's life, providing the viewer with an outline of his interests in the natural and spiritual worlds dating back to his childhood. As his ideas develop, he confronts photography's "problem" -inextricable attachment to realistic representation- by challenging it with his desire to "capture and keep an object's mysterious self-inscription." The results are the 57 plates located in the last section of the book.

Using organic and raw materials such as humans and animals, flowers and plants, water, stained glass from churches and light alone, Fuss inscribes their living energies onto the light sensitive paper by use of time and a stroboscopic flash. Labeled with numbers alone, the plates of multiple series of Fuss's experimental photograms refer to the text while inviting broader conversations because they are untitled.

The universe, conscious versus the unconscious, chaos versus harmony, representations of the soul's journey, and the awareness of eternal return can all be seen throughout theses photograms. From abstract expressionism and surrealism to pure documentation, Fuss's unique methodology refers to past masters while revealing his spiritual and emotional process as a journey to discover the essence of natural forms.

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible!, June 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Adam Fuss (Hardcover)

I own the Firt Edition of this book and it sits on my coffee table, constantly receiving "rave" reviews whenever I have guests over ---- the book is just stunning! A must have for any photography collector!