CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/19/2022

In 'Mitch Epstein: Recreation,' a world without filters

"Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts II" (1991) is reproduced from new release Mitch Epstein: Recreation—a book by one of our favorite living photographers, and a book that goes eighty-four for eighty-four, as far as reproducing only great pictures. A much-expanded edition of Epstein's classic photobook of 2005, also published by Steidl, this volume contains eighteen additional photographs, 1973–1992. Thirty-four photographs are previously unseen. "Among the first to introduce color photography into the realm of fine art," Erica Ackerberg writes in The New York Times Book Review, "Epstein captured individuals and groups in a variety of downtime activities: a couple pausing to window-shop outside a boutique in New Orleans, a raunchy performance at a Los Angeles nightclub, a group of men peeking into a Midtown Manhattan construction site, nude beachgoers on Martha’s Vineyard. His photographs evoke an unusual array of emotions; they’re funny and melancholy, contemplative, nostalgic and a bit lonely. Together these scenes paint a portrait of late-20th-century anomie, of a world without filters, selfies or self-consciousness."