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FUNDACIóN MAPFRE
Vanessa Winship
Text by Carlos Martín García, Neal Ascherson, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Juan Goytisolo.
The work of British photographer Vanessa Winship (born 1960) first emerged into public consciousness in the late 1990s, as the political world map was being radically redrawn in the wake of the Cold War. Her sober, black-and-white depictions of Eastern Europe, shot in natural light on a variety of formats and cameras, explored concepts of borders, national identity and the vulnerability of humans within the continuum of history and world conflict. Upon her receipt of the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 2011, Robert Delpire observed: "Her work might be seen as a classic documentary approach but in fact it features a sensitivity and complexity that is deeply contemporary." This first broad survey of her work (previous monographs have focused on single series) lusciously reproduces her many acclaimed projects: Imagined States and Desires: A Balkan Journey (1999–2003); Black Sea: Between Chronicle and Fiction (2002–10); Georgia: Seeds Carried by the Wind (2008–10); Sweet Nothings: Schoolgirls of Eastern Anatolia (2007); Humber (2010); the widely acclaimed She Dances on Jackson (2011–12), of which Phil Coomes of BBC News raved: "This is pure photography, and … viewed as a whole, is about as good as it gets"; and her most recent series, Almería: Where Gold Was Found (2014). Also included are specially commissioned essays by Neil Ascherson, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa and Carlos Martín García; excerpts from books by Juan Goytisolo; plus a biography timeline, an updated bibliography and a selection of texts by the photographer used to complement each series in the style of a travel diary.
Featured image is reproduced from Vanessa Winship.
In Fundacion Mapfre's stunning new monograph on Vanessa Winship—a featured title at our table at Aperture's Holiday Book Bazaar this Saturday, December 16—Carlos Martin Garcia writes, "Lying behind she dances on Jackson (the series from which the featured image derives) like an invisible map are Robert Adams' silent endeavors, Robert Frank’s profound investigations in The Americans, Walker Evans’ gaze on the America of the Great Depression era, and the pitiless lens that Richard Avedon focused on the rural world in The American West, to cite just a few examples. By right, Winship’s photographs join that group from the new context of economic recession and the failure of the American dream. The quiet stillness of everything that is falling into ruins and the fact that the values that previously sustained the entire system now seem to have been put on hold provide the foundations for a series that is more closely connected to the artist’s own biography than any of the previous ones. It is not by chance that Winship has acknowledged she dances on Jackson as her most personal work to date, given that behind this dialogue with the 'fathers' of documentary photography we encounter the presence of another father, in this case real, specific and biological: her own." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 11.5 in. / 260 pgs / 9 color / 173 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $75 ISBN: 9788498444681 PUBLISHER: Fundación Mapfre AVAILABLE: 10/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD Except Spain
Published by Fundación Mapfre. Text by Carlos Martín García, Neal Ascherson, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Juan Goytisolo.
The work of British photographer Vanessa Winship (born 1960) first emerged into public consciousness in the late 1990s, as the political world map was being radically redrawn in the wake of the Cold War. Her sober, black-and-white depictions of Eastern Europe, shot in natural light on a variety of formats and cameras, explored concepts of borders, national identity and the vulnerability of humans within the continuum of history and world conflict. Upon her receipt of the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 2011, Robert Delpire observed: "Her work might be seen as a classic documentary approach but in fact it features a sensitivity and complexity that is deeply contemporary." This first broad survey of her work (previous monographs have focused on single series) lusciously reproduces her many acclaimed projects: Imagined States and Desires: A Balkan Journey (1999–2003); Black Sea: Between Chronicle and Fiction (2002–10); Georgia: Seeds Carried by the Wind (2008–10); Sweet Nothings: Schoolgirls of Eastern Anatolia (2007); Humber (2010); the widely acclaimed She Dances on Jackson (2011–12), of which Phil Coomes of BBC News raved: "This is pure photography, and … viewed as a whole, is about as good as it gets"; and her most recent series, Almería: Where Gold Was Found (2014). Also included are specially commissioned essays by Neil Ascherson, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa and Carlos Martín García; excerpts from books by Juan Goytisolo; plus a biography timeline, an updated bibliography and a selection of texts by the photographer used to complement each series in the style of a travel diary.
