Alison Rossiter’s large-format homage to the sculptural properties of photographic paper
This volume documents 12 paper works made from the earliest expired photographic papers in the collection of New York–based artist Alison Rossiter (born 1953), created in honor of Anna Atkins, the first person to illustrate a book with photographs. The exact expiration dates of these papers pinpoint their location on a timeline and coexist with events in world history.
No matter what the light-sensitive materials have endured through dormant years, they still respond to chemical development, and the resulting photographic tones are evidence of experience. Physical damage, moisture and mold produce tonal changes when developed. This book, a copublication with the New York Public Library and Yossi Milo, includes all 12 works from the series at actual scale, along with close-up details. The reference dates, which cover world events such as World War II, and art historical references such as Picasso’s Blue Period, are included at the back.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Alison Rossiter: Compendium 1898–1919.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Brooklyn Rail
Zach Ritter
The consistent strength of [Rossiter's] work is the ease with which it produces abstractions that seem simple and familiar, only to reveal shortly thereafter the complex chain of accident, chance, and decision-making at its source.
1stdibs
Hilarie Sheets
[Rossiter] collects the discarded, going back into history, and celebrates the physicality of her materials.
Artforum
Jeffrey Kastner
Elegant, conceptually expansive [...] The cameraless pictures she produces may be depopulated, but they are by no means without subjects [...] something might yet still be recovered from what at first seems to be nothing at all.
Le Monde
Red Glasses
At first glance, Alison Rossiter's work seems magical, a kind of alchemical work: a transformation of matter...But Rossiter's work is also an archaeology, to find vestiges of the past, to resurrect a sunken history, to do forensic work on the history of paper, to establish communion with the men who, handling the same paper 50 years ago, left their imprints there.
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FORMAT: Hbk, 13 x 16 in. / 96 pgs / 36 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $75.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $108 GBP £65.00 ISBN: 9781942185703 PUBLISHER: Radius Books/New York Public Library/Yossi Milo AVAILABLE: 6/9/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Radius Books/New York Public Library/Yossi Milo.
Alison Rossiter’s large-format homage to the sculptural properties of photographic paper
This volume documents 12 paper works made from the earliest expired photographic papers in the collection of New York–based artist Alison Rossiter (born 1953), created in honor of Anna Atkins, the first person to illustrate a book with photographs. The exact expiration dates of these papers pinpoint their location on a timeline and coexist with events in world history.
No matter what the light-sensitive materials have endured through dormant years, they still respond to chemical development, and the resulting photographic tones are evidence of experience. Physical damage, moisture and mold produce tonal changes when developed. This book, a copublication with the New York Public Library and Yossi Milo, includes all 12 works from the series at actual scale, along with close-up details. The reference dates, which cover world events such as World War II, and art historical references such as Picasso’s Blue Period, are included at the back.
