FACTS & FABLES BY LUIS MEDINA, PHOTOGRAPHER - Rare Fine Copy of The Exhibition Catalog

Medina, Luis (Photographer); Travis, David & Pau-Llosa, Ricardo (Contributors)

ISBN 10: 086559127X / ISBN 13: 9780865591271

Published by Chicago, IL: Art Institute Of Chicago, 1993, 1993

About this Item

1st Printing. 62 pages. Published in 1993. Exhibition Catalog. The single best book on the photographic art and achievement of Luis Medina. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only. The Exhibition Catalog is now scarce. A brilliant production by the Art Institute of Chicago: Regular-sized volume format. Pictorial softcovers with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Luis Medina. Essays by David Travis and Ricardo Pau-Llosa. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Published on the occasion of the posthumous exhibition of the same name held at The Art Institute of Chicago from November 6, 1993 through January 19, 1994. Presents Luis Medina's "Facts & Fables". Beautiful photographs of Chicago's gritty street life, as occupied by its Hispanic gangs, notably "Sons of the Devil". A Cuban immigrant, Medina was gay (he died of AIDS in 1985), highly educated (he spent three years in Europe, to study art and photography), and refined (he kept a diary that was filled with brilliant, aphoristic writing). He apparently did not find sufficient fulfillment as such, and upon discovering the violent gangs living on the periphery of urban life, he immediately embraced them as his own. The homo-eroticism of the photographs recalls Mapplethorpe, with whom Medina shares an innate theatricality that Pau-Llosa describes in his Essay in illuminating detail. Gang violence is for real ("facts"). But it has always had imaginative and symbolic elements, which find expression in subversive, explosive graffiti, and that a perceptive photographer like Medina grasped and adopted as his own ("fables"). The built-in distance between photographer and subject is not just bridged in these images. Medina took these photographs as self-expression, and self-transcendence. This was who he believed and felt he really was as well as who he always wanted to be. As Pedro Almodovar famously said, the more you identify with what you aspire to be, the more, paradoxically, real you will ever be. Meanwhile, here are Medina's photographs: Indelible and powerful. An absolute "must-have" title for Luis Medina collectors. This title is a late-modern art photography classic. This is one of few copies of the Exhibition Catalog still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have very serious flaws. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 26 color, 6 black-and-white plates. One of the most brilliant American photographers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 086559127X. Seller Inventory # 19385

Bibliographic Details

Title: FACTS & FABLES BY LUIS MEDINA, PHOTOGRAPHER ...

Publisher: Chicago, IL: Art Institute Of Chicago, 1993

Publication Date: 1993

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: None, As Issued

Signed: no

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Exhibition catalog for a show of Luis Median's photographs at The Art Institute of Chicago, Nov 6, 1993 – Jan 19, 1994. Mostly portraits of Chicago gang members, Santero worshippers and street graffiti. Photographs by Luis Medina; by David Travis; essay by Ricardo Pau-Llosa. Perfect-bound; 62 pages; 26 color and 6 b&w plates; 9 x 9 inches. Chronology.