The Bone House [Hardcover]

Jack Woody (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Witkin's longtime publisher brings out this latest update of his oeuvre with the lush reproductions and immaculate design one expects from Twin Palms. Featuring "First Photograph, Brooklyn, 1950," one photograph from 1998, and even a couple striking paintings, this work ranges widely, but the vast majority of the roughly 90 pieces are from the well-documented 1980s and 1990s. The macabre and sublime mix in these images, mostly tableaux on mythical themes, which Witkin explains with the observation that "I consider myself a portraitist; not of people, but conditions of being." A prominent photography writer, Parry contributes a thoughtful if not revelatory afterword. This may well be the finest collection of Witkin's work to date, and contemporary photography collections will want a copy to complement other titles; public libraries and general collections might make do with the catalog to Witkin's Guggenheim Museum retrospective show (Joel-Peter Witkin, LJ 9/15/95).AEric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Twin Palms Publishers (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 094409256X
• ISBN-13: 978-0944092569
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 10.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,314,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Witkin!, April 15, 1999

By 

Michael Raimondi (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bone House (Hardcover)

Certainly Witkin's work is not for the faint of heart. For those unfamiliar with his photographs, Joel-Peter Witkin performs what is essentially destructive construction of your brain. His often painful yet strangely beautiful images force the reader to re-evaluate those people often stereotyped as freaks and outcasts. His work is deeply symbolic, yet is immediately satisfying for those de-sensitized enough to endure the grotesque nature of his visions. Modern performers such as Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails have borrowed heavily from Witkin's creative well (especially evident in the Closure video). The Bone House is basically a summary of his work up to the present, and includes some enlightening text by Witkin himself. It is 196 pages, with 92 four-color plates.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Magical Image, February 16, 2001

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Bone House (Hardcover)

Aptly named, THE BONE HOUSE is a collection of Witkin's images covering the period from 1950 to 1998. Witkin himself made the selection of his images. This is the first time I have seen some of these photographs, but many others are drawn from Witkin's better known images. The collection is remarkable.

Witkin is not an easy photographer/artist to get next to. He uses death, morbidity, deformity and sexual diversity to continually push at aesthetic boundaries. His work changes the viewer in it's search for beauty among the artifacts of the grotesque.

Yet it is not Witkin's intent to shock. Few viewers realize the amount of planning and control that goes into these images. Witken's own writings often depict himself as an aesthetic primitive or pagan, but this is far from the truth. This volume, and the Celant collaboration with Witkin contain preliminary sketches that are worth the price of admission. The artist's unearthly compositions, often composed with human and animal fragments are often drawn from images that come to us from the 16th and 17th century.

The book itself is beautifully bound and printed. Twin Palms has done their best to capture the quality of the Witkin prints. Unfortunately, this is a hopeless task. He tears, scratches, paints and waxes a print until it is far more than a simple photographic print. But the reproduction in the book is as good as I've seen.

I'm one of the fortunate few where was able to by the edition with the signed etching at it's earlier, pre-issue price. Now that edition is quite dear. If you can afford it, the etching is delightful, and well worth the expense. If not, there is also a less expensive, unsigned version, now in it's second printing, for considerably less.

This is unnerving, thoughtful photography. Consider this:

"I have consecrated my life to changing matter into spirit in the hope of someday seeing it all. Seeing its total form, while wearing the mask, from the distance of death. And there, in the eternal destiny, to seek the face I had before the world was made." (Joel-Peter Witkin)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant., October 30, 2003

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bone House (Hardcover)

Joel-Peter Witkin, The Bone House (Twin Palms, 2000)

Witkin is best known outside the world of avant-garde art for being one of those whose work was scrutinized during the whole "art or pedophilia?" craze that followed the hullabaloo surrounding Robert Mapplethorpe getting an NEA grant (not that those two things are related, except in the diseased minds of those who decided that all "deviance" is necessarily related.) Which is too bad, because Witkin creates photographs of a singularly disturbing atmosphere, a combination of beauty and brutality perhaps last imagined by Bosch and Bruegel hundreds of years ago.

Witkin is (and he admits this readily in his introduction to this collection) thoroughly obsessed with death, mutilation, violence, the erotic, and how they all intertwine. His photographs, which he calls portraits, do not capture the portrait per se but what Witkin sees as the true soul, the symbol of the person or people involved; the photographic equivalent of Bacon's famous study of Velasquez' Pope Innocent X. His photos are not for the faint of heart, but it seems to me that even the most squeamish will find a rare attractive power in Witkin's work. I strongly suggest, however, that the more squeamish not read the end essay (which starts with a description of how Witkin composed and photographed the photo "Feast of Fools," a description which may cause even less sensitive stomachs to roll).

These photographs are disturbing, repulsive, above all beautiful; one thinks, though, it would take a truly diseased mind to find anything of the pedophilic in the photographs presented here. With all the many layers to be studied in these compositions, it seems like the work of a revisionist historian, or someone with the Jesse Helms "I don't know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it" mentality, to overlay something onto them that simplifies and erroneously categorizes them. We see what's there through our own filters; photography, especially of this sort, is interpreted by what we bring to the table ourselves. Those who crow most loudly about such things in the future may want to remember this. "Do not gaze long into the abyss..." **** ½