PAUL GRAHAM
THE PRESENT,
artists' book with a signed and numbered pigment ink print, artists' book:
hardcover including 13 gatefolds in an embossed linen bound slipcase, 114 pages
24.5 x 30.5 cm. /9.6 x 12 inches, pigment inkprint: 24.5 x 30.5 cm. /9.6 x 12
inches, edition 50, signed and numbered, 2012
€ 900,-
pigment ink print
book pages
bookpages
bookpages
bookpages
Street
photography is perhaps the defining genre of photographic art. Seminal works by
Walker Evans, Harry Callahan, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand display
photography’s astonishing dance with life, and its unique role in forming our
perceptions of the modern world.
The Present is Paul Graham’s contribution to this
legacy. The images in this book come unbidden from the streets of New York, but
are not quite what we might expect, for each moment is brought to us with its
double – two images taken from the same location, separated only by the
briefest fraction of time. We find ourselves in sibling worlds, where a
businessman with an eye patch becomes, an instant later, a man with an
exaggerated wink; a woman eating a banana walks towards us, and a small focus
shift reveals the blind man right behind her.
Although there are flashes of surprise – a woman
walks confidently down the street one moment, only to tumble to the ground a
second later – for the most part there is little of the drama street
photography is addicted to. People arrive and depart this quiet stage, with the
smallest shift of time and attention revealing the thread between them. A suited
young businessman crosses the road, only to be replaced by his homeless
alternate; a woman in a pink t-shirt is engulfed with tears, but seconds later
there is a content shopper in her place.
The Present gives us an impression quite different
to most street photography where life is frozen rigid. Here we glimpse the
continuum: before/after, coming/going, either/or. A ‘present’ that is a
fleeting and provisional alignment, with no singularity or definitiveness; a
world of shifting awareness and alternate realities, where life twists and
spirals in a fraction of a second to another moment, another world, another
consciousness.
Untitled # 20, from the series
'Paintings', fujiflex crystal archive print, 11 x 14 inches, mounted on aluminum
and custom framed, edition of 50, signed and numbered, 1999
€ 1200,-