|
The American Monument In The American Monument, Friedlander "understands and brings us human civilization, embattled but intact in the various wilds of American enterprise, whether downtown, in suburbia, or on the roof." -Leslie Katz FIRST EDITION of one of the classics of American photography. The American Monument "takes us through the urban and suburban territory that [Friedlander] made his own, his habitual edginess showing through from time to time. The statues, war memorials, plaques and other commemorative monuments that celebrate events large and small are his subjects, but Friedlander shows the modern urban world encroaching on them. And if his subject has become more important than is usual in his work, Friedlander's formal virtuosity and imagination are never in doubt. The American Monument is an encyclopaedic lesson in how to put a picture together. "It is also a lesson in how to put a photobook together. Large-format and designed to look and feel like a photo album, The American Monument is bound with removable screw posts that allow the plates to be taken out for display. The printing by the Meriden Gravure Company, on heavy stock paper, is sumptuous, and Friedlander's editing is brilliant. He plays with the book's rhythm, sometimes printing one picture to a page, but usually presenting them in groups of four, six, eight or ten, even sixteen, emphasizing the projects' enormous scope and the generic similarities between certain kinds of monument. The American Monument "was one of the first photobooks to be published by the Eakins Press Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the finest standards in publishing and design. In Friedlander's book they found a photographer and a subject worthy of their ambitions" (Parr/Badger, II. 28). Roth 236. New York: The Eakins Press Foundation, (1976). Oblong folio, original blue-green cloth, triple screw-post binding. Light sunning to extremities of binding; interior fine. $2400. |
