An ethereal photobook that drifts between personal history and the fallibility of memory
Jude's latest book project, Emmett, brings new life to a selection of his own early photographs, made in the early 1980s in central Idaho. Enhanced by special-effects filters and cheap telephoto lenses, the pictures include hazy scenes of a summertime drag race, a forest across changing seasons, midnight horror films on TV and a Nordic-looking teenager who appears as a specter from the artist's past. Edited here nearly 30 years after its making, this experimental body of work acquires unexpected nuance and humor, and has the serendipitous qualities of a dream--memories reorganized into a fictionalized narrative, imagery suffused with both an unsettling melancholy and the glow of youthful reverie. Related conceptually to and residing thematically between his two previous books--Alpine Star and Other Nature--Emmett achieves an aesthetic inspired by equal parts Motörhead and Jean-Paul Sartre.
"The past did not exist. Not at all.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, NAUSEA
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
—Pink Floyd, SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND"
This photograph by Ron Jude, circa 1983-84, and the quotes above, are excerpted from his 2010 book Ron Jude: Emmett, published by the Ice Plant.
STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.
FROM THE BOOK
"And here now from Ron Jude comes Emmett (2010). I turn the pages and as I sit with it in my hands all that I can feel is my "past" and its ghosts and this magical beauty of that beast. A strong melancholy sets in as sadness and a sort of mourning mingles with a kaleidiscope of beauty and that vision of long ago times. Although the images on the page are not my own, what "Emmett" tells is the universal story of youth and the fleeting, your youth and mine. Ron Jude's memory and the viewers are all here to be in a way, intertwined. A shared time capsule of sorts, and a rush back into the mind.
You know that feeling you catch through a scent, a song or a sound and everything comes rushing back, your minds eye is jump-started and you go quickly to the places of your past? Your eyes stare off as they are cast downward and you can only see within. This is 'Emmett.'"
Doug Rickard, quoted from his photography and culture blog, American Suburb X.
FORMAT: Pbk, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 80 pgs / 40 color / 9 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $30.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $40 GBP £27.00 ISBN: 9780982365328 PUBLISHER: The Ice Plant AVAILABLE: 11/30/2010 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA UK EUR ASIA AFR ME
An ethereal photobook that drifts between personal history and the fallibility of memory
Jude's latest book project, Emmett, brings new life to a selection of his own early photographs, made in the early 1980s in central Idaho. Enhanced by special-effects filters and cheap telephoto lenses, the pictures include hazy scenes of a summertime drag race, a forest across changing seasons, midnight horror films on TV and a Nordic-looking teenager who appears as a specter from the artist's past. Edited here nearly 30 years after its making, this experimental body of work acquires unexpected nuance and humor, and has the serendipitous qualities of a dream--memories reorganized into a fictionalized narrative, imagery suffused with both an unsettling melancholy and the glow of youthful reverie. Related conceptually to and residing thematically between his two previous books--Alpine Star and Other Nature--Emmett achieves an aesthetic inspired by equal parts Motörhead and Jean-Paul Sartre.
