Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach [Hardcover]

Steve Baker (Author), Garry Marvin (Author), Lyall Watson (Author), Catherine Chalmers (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2005

Catherine Chalmers's second Aperture monograph invites us to meditate on the pleasures and terrors of the common domestic pest, Periplaneta americana, also known as the American cockroach. In three different series of photographs, "Infestations," "Imposters" and "Executions," Chalmers challenges us to reconsider how we distinguish between creepy infestation and acceptable nature. With a slight B-movie quality, the images push us to think carefully about the ways in which we determine some creatures to be lovable and others best squashed under a shoe.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It might seem odd—if not implausible—for an artistic medley of photographs to take the reviled cockroach as subject and inspiration. But the artwork and essays in this slim volume actually manage to humanize these "flat, twitchy, squishy, spine-legged" but often innocuous pests. Chalmers unleashes a remarkable creative energy on her spindly subjects, often gussying up their carapaces with paint and even rhinestones as she positions them against rich backgrounds—from exotic flowers to a living room couch—in photographs that encompass a broad range of moods. Some of the extreme close-ups, like one where a cockroach peers through a kitchen window, portray an inquisitive, harmless creature that could star in children’s books. Up close, we glimpse the spindles on its legs, the breadth of its shell, its comically large antennae. But the starker black-and-white photographs showing dead cockroaches lashed to a plank or dangling like clothespins send shivers down the spine. In each instance, the magnified images and their incongruous elements force readers to confront a creature that they shrink from and seek to kill—thereby wrenching ingrained disgust into consciousness. 50 four-color and duotone images.
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Review

"She chose the uninvited and loathed cockroach--whose appearance is creepy but whose threat is minute--to elicit our subjective response and behavior toward animals... Had the roach something to fancy--a fuzzy body, a polka dot or two--perhaps their skating across our kitchen countertops would not excite as great a fright or as disproportionate a hate. The curious blend of fear and sympathy that American Cockroach evokes extends beyond the common house pest into all nature." -- Amber Hares --After Image

"These arty photographs of live roaches frolicking in miniature homes, perching on gorgeous flora or strung up for execution (!?!) explore our knee-jerk revulsion to these quietest of roommates." -- Time Out: New York

"It might seem odd--if not implausible--for an artistic medley of photographs to take the reviled cockroach as subject and inspiration. But the artwork and essays in this slim volume actually manage to humanize these 'flat, twitchy, squishy, spine-legged' but often innocuous pests." -- Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Aperture (June 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931788391
• ISBN-13: 978-1931788397
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 7.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Check your phobias at the door, August 2, 2005

By 

Martin Unsal (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach (Hardcover)

Seeing that this remarkable collection hasn't been reviewed yet I thought I'd put in my two cents. To be truthful I don't own the book but I have looked through it carefully and I'm sure I'll buy it one of these days.

The book is a collection of close up photographs of cockroaches being anthropomorphised through constructed sets (like a dollhouse) and poses. The result is quite humorous and profoundly creepy.

Some of the compositions seem to echo William Wegman and his dogs, and others Anne Geddes and her babies. You could call it a homage, but I prefer to think of it as a blistering satire. That may reflect my own artistic taste, rather than that of the artist.

Few people would imagine themselves developing a sympathy for cockroaches, but the section of black and white photographs featuring tortured and dead insects is suprisingly poignant, perhaps because the preceeding chapters work so hard to portray the insect in human terms.

Obviously you have to decide for yourself whether the subject matter is for you. What I can say is that the concept is creative and well executed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite a special book, January 25, 2007

By 

David Mauriello (Delaware) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach (Hardcover)

I bought this book last year because I needed cockroach reference photos for my work. Well I got that alright and much more. The details are great and after leafing through scientific books, this was a treat.
Now for those of you interested in it for entertainment value, well, this has to be near the top of the list for a conversation starting coffee table book. Wow! The photos are detailed, well lit, the buggers are well staged and I think it will cause every reaction in people from screams and horror to outright laughter. It really is both an awesome idea as well as an awesome execution (no pun intended) of that idea.