Lucinda Devlin: Water Rites (a first printing)

Susanne Breidenbach; Michael Mackenzie

ISBN 10: 3882439289 / ISBN 13: 9783882439281

Published by Steidl,usa, 2004

About this Item

first printing/near fine hardback in near fine dustwrapper.massive book requiring extra postage for non uk address.

Seller Inventory # ooqwroomj

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Lucinda Devlin: Water Rites (a first printing)
• Publisher: Steidl,usa
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3882439289
• ISBN 13: 9783882439281
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

German spa facilities are sites at which one can apparently be cured of chronic illnesses. Whether they date from the nineteenth century, the post-war period, or today, these places are fast becoming leisure-time oases. In a new series, Lucinda Devlin has photographed the deserted interiors of these bathhouses, framing clinically sterile rooms meant for massages, baths, examinations and relaxation. These empty zones are silent testimonials to a healing industry that is thoughtfully tailored to people, even while its equipment subjugates them completely. Tellingly, they recall the rooms of Devlin's earlier series: the operating theaters, mortuaries and autopsy rooms in Corporal Arenas and the U.S. execution chambers in The Omega Suites. With her coolly remote photographs, Devlin presents the relationships between people and institutions, and then shows how certain facilities depersonalize those relationships. Water Rites conveys an insightful view into the--typically German?--mentality and source of our institutionalized humanity.