A charming collection of vintage photographs of readers lost in thought
Where do our minds go when we read books, magazines and letters? Do we seek an escape, a portal to another world? A secret, a truth, a pleasant distraction? Voyagers, edited by Melissa Catanese (author of Dive Dark Dream Slow), consists almost entirely of anonymous black-and-white snapshots of people in various postures of reading in living rooms, on beds, at the beach, eating breakfast.
We can't see what these readers are thinking, but Catanese occasionally breaks the hypnotic typological rhythm to reveal a new photographic element—a pyramid, a starry night, sunlight blindingly glowing through a window—giving us brief glimpses of the readers' potential narrative journeys.
A wordless book with the size and feel of a vintage paperback found at a flea market, Voyagers reminds us of the power and intimacy of our relationship to reading devices, and evokes an exotic nostalgia for our recent predigital culture.
As with Catanese's prior books (Dive Dark Dream Slow [2012], Hells Hollow, Fallen Monarch [2016]), the images were judiciously selected from the collection of Peter J. Cohen, a celebrated trove of more than 20,000 vernacular photographs from the early to mid-20th century. Gathered from flea markets, dealers and eBay, these images have been acquired, exhibited and included in a range of major museum publications.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Voyagers.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Paris Review
Their bodies are left behind, vulnerable to our gaze, while their minds travel to places we cannot imagine.
MetroSource
There is a certain serenity that descends while flipping through the pages in Melissa Catanese’s book of pictures of people reading books. It’s quite the little treasure.
Lenscratch
Lisa McCarty
Reading can be an escape from reality, but it can also be an engagement with it; a revelatory practice. Reading can lead to moments of introspection, interconnection, and empathy.
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Featured image is reproduced from Voyagers, editor Melissa Catanese's dreamy, enigmatic selection of 67 unattributed early- to mid-century vernacular photographs of people blissfully lost in the act of reading—all culled from the renowned Peter J. Cohen collection. No explanatory or congratulatory essay weighs the book down. However, the front and back covers are printed with an excerpt from Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. It ends, "the book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist and cannot exist except when written, but whose absence is obscurely felt by that which exists, in its own incompleteness." continue to blog
Saturday, October 13 from 4–6 PM, Arcana presents Ed Panar, Jake Longstreth, Melissa Catanese and Michael Schmelling signing new books from The Ice Plant and Deadbeat Club! In addition, Arcana will be serving Jacques Marlow's signature Ice Plant Margarita alongside the renowned accordion stylings of Ms. Erin Schneider. continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 5.25 x 7.5 in. / 122 pgs / 67 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $25.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $34.5 GBP £22.00 ISBN: 9780999265512 PUBLISHER: The Ice Plant AVAILABLE: 10/23/2018 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA UK EUR ASIA AFR ME
Published by The Ice Plant. Edited by Melissa Catanese.
A charming collection of vintage photographs of readers lost in thought
Where do our minds go when we read books, magazines and letters? Do we seek an escape, a portal to another world? A secret, a truth, a pleasant distraction? Voyagers, edited by Melissa Catanese (author of Dive Dark Dream Slow), consists almost entirely of anonymous black-and-white snapshots of people in various postures of reading in living rooms, on beds, at the beach, eating breakfast.
We can't see what these readers are thinking, but Catanese occasionally breaks the hypnotic typological rhythm to reveal a new photographic element—a pyramid, a starry night, sunlight blindingly glowing through a window—giving us brief glimpses of the readers' potential narrative journeys.
A wordless book with the size and feel of a vintage paperback found at a flea market, Voyagers reminds us of the power and intimacy of our relationship to reading devices, and evokes an exotic nostalgia for our recent predigital culture.
As with Catanese's prior books (Dive Dark Dream Slow [2012], Hells Hollow, Fallen Monarch [2016]), the images were judiciously selected from the collection of Peter J. Cohen, a celebrated trove of more than 20,000 vernacular photographs from the early to mid-20th century. Gathered from flea markets, dealers and eBay, these images have been acquired, exhibited and included in a range of major museum publications.
