| |
 |
| © Chuck Close |
| Click photo to launch a slideshow with more images from A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. |
A Couple of Ways of Doing Something
By Chuck Close and Bob Holman
Aperture; 56 pages; 22 tritone photographs; $40
Chuck Close's A Couple of Ways of Doing Something is an attempt to redefine collaboration between the printed word and the image. The book combines digital prints of Close's daguerreotypes of artists such as Cindy Sherman and Cecily Brown with praise poems by Bob Holman. In an interview that appears in the book, Close explains that he was originally approached to merely illustrate a book of literature. Instead, he wanted the images and the words to be equals.
Thus began a collaboration between Close and Holman (who met through Holman's wife, poet Elizabeth Murray). The photographer and the poet would choose an artist, whom Close would photograph. Then Holman would create a poem in the spirit of both the subject's work and the image created by Close.
Close says he was drawn to the daguerreotype because the antiquarian form evinces many of the traits he loves best about photography: incredible detail, pinpoint focus, and striking shadows and highlights. Working with Jerry Spagnoli in his New York City studio, Close labored at this tedious process -- creating each direct positive image by exposing a thin layer of silver halide on a polished plate and then processing it with chemical procedures. To allow for the quick exposures Close wanted, he and Spagnoli set up what he calls "a billion foot-candles of light to go off all at once," creating a painfully bright burst. "It's like having an ice pick shoved in your eyeball," Close says.
Although the imperfection-exposing daguerreotype is not a particularly flattering form, the book's authors didn't spare themselves the scrutiny. Close's self-portrait appears on the cover and inside, across from a poem by Holman. Holman's portrait accompanies a letter to himself: "Dear Bob, You are not allowed to use the word beautiful in a poem this year. Signed, The Rest of the World Except for You."
|
