Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel (Signed First Edition)

SULTAN, Larry, Mike Mandel, Charlotte Cotton, Jonathan Lethem, Constance M. Lewallen, Carter Ratcliff, and Thomas Wagner

ISBN 10: 1935202820 / ISBN 13: 9781935202820

Published by D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers Inc, New York, 2012

About this Item

First edition and first printing. Oblong hardcover. 263 pages. A look at this long time friendship and collaboration between these two California artists and photographers who met at art school. Edited by Thomas Zander. Features essays by Charlotte Cotton, Jonathan Lethem, Constance M. Lewallen, Carter Ratcliff, and Thomas Wagner. Includes 190 color and black and white illustrations. A fine copy in black cloth boards and in a fine dust jacket. Signed by Mike Mandel on the half title page. Uncommon thus. A very fresh copy.

Seller Inventory # 200181

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel (Signed First Edition)
• Publisher: D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers Inc, New York
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1935202820
• ISBN 13: 9781935202820
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Photography

About this title

Synopsis

The artistic collaboration between Larry Sultan (1946-2009) and Mike Mandel (born 1950) began in 1972, when they were both graduate students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Over the next 30 years, they created 20 photographic projects: two publications (including the landmark book Evidence); two exhibitions; the film, JPL; three public commissions; and 12 billboard series displayed on sites throughout California and the continental U.S. This collaboration enabled Sultan and Mandel to evolve a seemingly authorless style; most of their works adapted found imagery from archives or from popular media, neutralizing the intended commercial or documentary content by uncovering and emphasizing the inherent banality.

This substantial overview surveys Sultan and Mandel's 30 years of collaboration beginning with early billboard projects investigating themes of Californian culture and wealth, such as "Oranges on Fire" and "Cornucopia", based on a 1955 hand-tinted postcard of a model posing amid ripe oranges, and bearing the tagline: "California Gold Fills the Horn of Plenty To Overflowing." Their billboard projects continue with the tongue in cheek Ties and Whose News? in which the secondary title, "Whose News Abuses You?" is slyly imbedded in the image; and the duo's final billboard collaboration, Trouble Spots, a billboard project that used conflated and opposing ideologies in both fictitious and real locations.

Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel continues this extensive overview by chronicling their work with sourced images in the exhibitions Replaced (1975); Newsroom (1983); and the publications How to Read Music in One Evening (1974) and Evidence (1977). Five critical essays provide further insights on their collaboration.

Review

This conceptual art duo has redefined the function of the photograph; their ironic outdoor billboards, public installations, and self-published works combine found imagery and social commentary. (American Photo)