Andrea Robbins and Max Becher: The Transportation of Place [SIGNED]

ROBBINS, Andrea, BECHER, Max, BERGER, Maurice, LIPPARD, Lucy, MARTIN, Lesley A. (Editor)

ISBN 10: 1597110108 / ISBN 13: 9781597110105

Published by Aperture, New York, 2006

About this Item

First edition, first printing. Signed in black ink on title page by Robbins and Becher. Hardcover. Photographically illustrated paper-covered boards with matching dust jacket. Photographs and text by Andrea Robbins and Max Becher. Essays by Maurice Berger and Lucy Lippard. Edited by Lesley A. Martin. Includes a chronology, list of exhibitions, collections, and bibliography. Designed by Francesca Richer. 156 pp., with 118 four-color plates and seven additional illustrations, printed on thick matte paper. 10-3/8 x 12 inches. New in publisher's shrink-wrap (slit open for signature). From the publisher: "Andrea Robbins and Max Becher draw on a rich visual vocabulary gleaned as much from travel brochures, postcards, and National Geographic as from the photography of Walker Evans, Edward Curtis, and Stephen Shore. In doing so, Robbins and Becher produce work that functions as surreal nonfiction, using documentary images to examine contradictions of place and cultural identity. In the words of the artists, 'The primary focus of our work is what we call the transportation of place--situations in which one limited or isolated place strongly resembles another distant one. Everywhere, not only in the new world, such situations are accumulating and accepted as genuine locales. Traditional notions of place, in which culture and geographic location neatly coincide, are being challenged by legacies of slavery, colonialism, holocaust, immigration, tourism, and mass-communication. Whether the subject is Germany in Africa, Germans dressing as Native Americans, American towns dressed as Germany, New York in Las Vegas, New York in Cuba, or Cuba in exile, our interest tends to be a place out of place with its various causes and consequences.' The work posits vital questions for a globalized world: What are the larger implications of 'ideological passing,' when one culture assumes the skin of another? And what role can photography play as a document in context where cultural signification is entirely fluid? Curator and author Maurice Berger examines the work of Robbins and Becher against the background of race and identity, but also of Surrealism. Lucy Lippard discusses the development of the husband-and-wife team's work together, as well as looking specifically at the ideas of location, landscape, and manufactured place. 'Robbins and Becher's choice of subjects is brilliant, edifying, and always unexpected. . . . They seek out the visually varied symptoms of disruption and dislocation, exposing the bizarre manifestations of colonialism and its post-colonial counterpart--global tourism.' -Lucy Lippard" Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 101772

Bibliographic Details

Title: Andrea Robbins and Max Becher: The ...

Publisher: Aperture, New York

Publication Date: 2006

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: New

Dust Jacket Condition: New

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Andrea Robbins and Max Becher draw on a rich visual vocabulary gleaned as much from travel brochures, postcards and National Geographic as from the photography of Walker Evans, Edward Curtis and Stephen Shore. Their work, a somewhat surreal nonfiction, uses documentary images to examine contradictions of place and cultural identity: that is, when Germans tie on Native American headdresses and Midwesterners parade in Bavarian costumes, Robbins and Becher are there. In their own words, "The primary focus of our work is what we call the transportation of place--situations in which one limited or isolated place strongly resembles another distant one. Everywhere, not only in the new world, such situations are accumulating and accepted as genuine locales. Traditional notions of place, in which culture and geographic location neatly coincide, are being challenged by legacies of slavery, colonialism, holocaust, immigration, tourism and mass-communication. Whether the subject is Germany in Africa, Germans dressing as Native Americans, American towns dressed as Germany, New York in Las Vegas, New York in Cuba or Cuba in exile, our interest tends to be a place out of place with its various causes and consequences." Their work posits vital questions for a globalized world and for photography.

Review:

"[The Transportation of Place] has just about everything: sharply observed photography, 'introductory' essays thoughtfully tucked away in the back of the book, and a consistent theme of understated absurdity that makes each chapter a real eye-opener." --Outdoor Photography

"The Brooklyn Bridge is in Las Vegas. Or at least it is in The Transportation of Place, Max Becher and Andrea Robbins's book of photos of places and people that have appropriated the iconography of somewhere or someone else. The results are both witty (Germans who dress up as Native Americans...) and disquieting (the chilling 'poverty theme park' in Americus, Georgia)--and wholly, gleefully disorienting." --Condé Nast Traveler

"Published in the contemporary context that finds identity performed and pictures influencing life, New York in Las Vegas and New Mexico in Spain, the book is an important contribution considering issues of place, its nuance and erosion by powerful forces past and present--colonization, tourism and globalization. It's also important food for the perennial problem of the document, further complicated by the fluidity of cultural signification." -- Julie Anand --Photo-Eye: The International Magazine of Photography Books