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Loretta Lux (Hardcover)

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4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Customers buy this book with Photography Reborn: Image Making in the Digital Era (Abrams Studio) by Jonathan Lipkin

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

German artist Lux combines painting, photography and digital imagery to create disturbing, fairy tale-like portraits of children. In this sleek collection of 45 portraits, Lux superimposes photographs of her young models, many sporting vintage clothes and hairstyles, onto imaginary backgrounds of painted clouds or rose gardens. As essayist Prose explains, the portraits do not capture the reality of childhood; instead, they communicate something "about the world that children live in, about the way adults see them." The children's faces, all unsettlingly expressionless, are like those of porcelain dolls, frozen pale pink with blushed cheeks. Most of the models stare straight at the camera, their glassy eyes penetrating the reader, but even more intriguing are the photos in which the children are looking elsewhere, focused on something that no longer exists. At first glance, the children look flawless, almost too perfect to be real, but viewers captivated by their beauty will soon take notice of discomforting subtleties, like the stains on the girl's jacket in "Marianne," or the girl's bandaged and bruised knees in "Study of a Girl 1." "Like every child, the children in these pictures have secrets from the adult world, secrets more urgent and real to them than the reality around them," Prose writes, and it is this disparity between the secretive and the superficial worlds that makes these photographs so captivating.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

Apparently inspired by the child portraiture of Velazquez, German artist Lux produces eerily composed photo portraits of children. She poses her subjects, dressed in costumes of her selection, against a blank backdrop. Later she digitally places them in landscapes and barren rooms culled from other photographs. Characteristically, the colors of a child's clothes match or nearly match those of the backgrounds, and all are pale as the children's skin. The children never smile; rarely do their eyes gaze directly out, more rarely do they suggest communication. Seemingly floating before rather than inhabiting the settings, they are to be appreciated strictly for what they are, like the little royalty and aristocrats in old paintings. In the introductory essay, Francine Prose says just about everything that needs to be said to enrich viewing the portraits, but she doesn't notice the album's single image of an adult: a young man with a shotgun, dressed in camouflage and kneeling beside a dog, whose anomalous presence encourages leafing through the book again and again to figure out how he fits. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 88 pages
  • Publisher: Aperture; illustrated edition edition (April 14, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1931788545
  • ISBN-13: 978-1931788540
  • Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.7 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #99,616 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
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 (3)
3 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and haunting images, June 20, 2005
Lux's first monograph is highly original and challenging to its viewers. The children in these 45 images will haunt anyone who views them and provoke you to view the children around you in a new light. Lux was a trained as a painter and each image takes her months to compose from the painted elements in the backdrops to the alterations in color and shape she makes within the photographs themselves. The result are images that make the viewer reflect both on childhood and on the act of viewing something outside ourselves. How often do we actually look at children directly that are not are own? How self aware are the children around us or how well do they understand the world around them? The pictures taunt and elude are perceptions. At first the children seem too photoshopped and perfect - like an adult's idealized view of childhood. Then your eye notices bruises on the child's body, eyes unnaturally large, or a bandaid covering a knee cut. The myth of the perfect child living in an edenic world is violated and the viewer is left in an uneasy place. These strange images are ones that will stick with viewers beyond their first impressions and Lux has a bright future in the art world.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A haunting set of artistic images, June 7, 2005
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
Loretta Lux's first monograph packs in 45 portraits, but this is no recap from prior publishings; over half have never been published before. You'll find the German photographer's imaginary portraits of children to be both haunting and chilling. Her kids are rarely smiling - indeed, they face the world with a seriousness not usually seen in portraits of kids seemingly middle-class or more in society. A haunting set of artistic images for any interested in portraits and photos of children.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing work that may wear out its welcome, August 19, 2005
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The portraits are quite startling, and technically dazzling. However there is little empathy with the children apparent to this eye, and the results are a bit chilly. I'll be interested to see how often I return to muse over these photographs.Reservations aside, this is provocative new work, and a good addition to a collection of contemporary photo monographs . The book's production is excellent.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful images, beautiful book
What a beautiful book. I bought it as a gift for a friend, and then could not give it away.

Miss Lux's children are hauntingly beautiful. Read more
Published 8 months ago by angry lottie

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites
My review:
Each page gives you a standard portrait or a child, but something isn't quite right. The children look normal, and yet other-worldly. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Eric Slay

5.0 out of 5 stars lux to the max
loretta lux is a stunning photographer with a sharp critical eye. from the first time i saw her work 8 years ago, it has stayed with me. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Dale Cohen

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have art photography book
This is a stunning collection of beautiful images that inhabit a no man's land between photography and painting. Read more
Published on October 17, 2007 by Neil Macbeth

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible! A photographer's artist, or an artist's photographer...
Ever since I saw Loretta Lux's "Boy with Drum," I've been fascinated by her work. She manages to mix photography with painting and produce works that just stay in your mind (at... Read more
Published on May 30, 2007 by Mark Bollobas

4.0 out of 5 stars Paradise of Paradox
Ultimately beautiful and unsettling, this book contains a collection of highly stylized and manipulated photographs that are deceptively simple. Read more
Published on January 20, 2007 by L. L. M. Sanchez

5.0 out of 5 stars Dream childhood
Beautiful mysterious odd photos of a lost unreal childhood. Really well done repoductions and an inspriation to artists and viewers.
Published on January 18, 2007 by Mary Park-smith

3.0 out of 5 stars more technology than art
time will tell if this book is a one hit wonder or a classic, but it is certainly a popular topic of art speak. Read more
Published on July 23, 2006 by jack kerr

2.0 out of 5 stars Cool but not wicked cool

I waited for quite some time for this book to come out, but I ended up being a little dissapointed. Read more
Published on June 10, 2006 by Starry Eyes

4.0 out of 5 stars hmmmmmmm
hmmmmmmmm..

I'll take Loretta's oversize headed models with their blank icy expressions and combine them with Maggie Taylor's surreal complex backgrounds. Read more
Published on February 25, 2006 by Felix Allen

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