"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Mischievous, as Westerbrook explains, because Howe's doesn't comfortably fit into any standard categories of photography but instead feeds off of Conceptualism (without really fitting into that either). A street photographer, a studio artiste, a surrealist--Howe is all and none of these so much as he is a restless eye with a wonderful talent for expressiveness, playfulness and for seeing photographic possibility in anything.
The chronological nature of this book and exhibition allows us to trace his development, from his moody black-and-white landscapes, hedges, odd objects, and suburban textures of England, France, Australia and Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s to his most recent explorations: color-saturated studies of objects from a Las Vegas dump, in which mattress springs, children's dolls, discarded underwear, clothes hangars, red suitcase linings and pornographic snapshots tell no tales of Sin City.
In between, Howe shows us how American freeways course through the Southwest, adding their rhythm and purpose to the desert's harsh, random sprawl; how the stone monuments and concrete blocks of Europe and elsewhere seem to contain time and history in inscrutable compressions of energy; how forest images and still lifes arranged in grids suggest something about our ways of seeking order; and how full-frame landscapes, horizon-less, can be wonderful, natural abstractions.
Or not. Howe's artful charm lies in his lack of insistence about any of his subjects. They exist for him and his camera, and so they exist for us, but there's always a sense that he is open to what they may mean or how they may affect us. By 1984, his Color Theory series bathes everyday objects in spectrographic plays of luminous light, a highly artificialized portfolio of studio work that is as far removed from his landscapes as can be, which may be the point. Howe seems determined not be categorized or easily identified by any one photo or any era of his artistry, and this gives him the total latitude he requires to approach the medium from any and every side. --E-Photo Newsletter #164, October 24, 2009
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First printing. First printing. Hardcover. 12 1/4'' x 11 3/4''. 153pp. General wear to cloth. Seller Inventory # 12667
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very good. Cloth/no dust jacket Quarto. brown cloth boards, blindstamped and black lettering, photo on cover, no dust jacket, 153 pp Standard shipping (no tracking) / Priority (with tracking) / Custom quote for large or heavy order. Seller Inventory # 76174
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: vg- to near fine. First edition. Square folio. 153pp (3). Brown cloth photo illustrated boards, with debossed lettering on front cover. Black lettering on spine. Essay by Colin Westerbeck. The book was published in conjunction with traveling exhibition of the photographer's work, of the same name, organized by the University of California Riverside in conjunction with the California Museum of Photography. Profusely illustrated throughout with high quality photographic reproductions of Howe's work in color and b/w, on subjects ranging from natural forms, landscapes and urban settings to the more abstract. Binding with some scratches to front and back covers. Binding in overall very good-, interior in near fine condition. Seller Inventory # 41216