PUBLISHER
Decode Books

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 11 x 11 in. / 64 pgs / 30 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/31/2011
No longer our product

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2011 p. 90

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780979337376 TRADE
List Price: $60.00 CDN $70.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Seattle, WA
G. Gibson Gallery, 11/18/11-12/29/11

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DECODE BOOKS

Nealy Blau: Elsewhere

Interview by Clint Willour.

Since early childhood, Seattle photographer Nealy Blau (born 1968) has wandered the halls of natural history museums, finding escape and reverie in the mysterious and sometimes eerie dioramas of constructed nature scenes. In Elsewhere, Blau photographs these dioramas as though they were actual vistas, conspiring with the interactions between their three-dimensional components and the painted backdrops to compel her images to the brink of reality. “I found that if I employed techniques that blurred the perceptions of what is real and what is not I could focus on something more abstract and essential and mysterious,” she says, in an interview with Clint Willour at the end of this volume. Photographers have explored the museum diorama before, but usually in order to trade on their kitsch appeal; Blau instead explores their enchanting melancholia, and titles each picture to indicate the location, at natural history museums in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Santa Barbara and Tacoma. Brimming with gift appeal, Elsewhere was featured as one of Oprah Winfrey's favorite books in the December 2010 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

"I found that if I employed techniques that blurred the perceptions of what is real and what is not I could focus on something more abstract and essential and mysterious. I want the images to capture a presence. When I am editing the images, that is always the first thing I am looking for. It is either there or not for me."
Nealy Blau, excerpted from his interview with Clint Willour in Elsewhere. Featured image, Untitled 2, Denver Museum of Nature and Science is also reproduced from Elsewhere.

FROM THE BOOK

"I'm not interesting in trying to trick people--it's not satisfying to me to trick people. I like to present more of a puzzle. I think these museums are complex experiences and have complex representations of nature. But I am only showing a small portion of the diorama, not the whole thing. A lot of people ask me why there aren't animals so much in the images. I found that once there's an animal, there's a protagonist and then all of a sudden the image becomes this other thing. It becomes recognizable. Even though animals sometimes are secondary to the image, I didn't want them to ground them image too much. As long as I framed around the animals, things would be more open-ended and mysterious and that was a place that was more interesting to me."

Nealy Blau, excerpted from his interview with Clint Willour in Elsewhere.

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