When Two or More Are Gathered Together - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 8862088299 ISBN 13: 9788862088299

Verlag: Damiani, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

From ballroom dancers to bodybuilders, Slavin’s photographic diary of organizations in ’70s America captures both nuanced group dynamics and larger societal values

In the 1970s, photographer Neal Slavin traveled around the United States documenting groups and gatherings. From bingo players to ballroom dancers, bodybuilders, Star Trek conventions and religious congregations, Slavin photographed seemingly every imaginable organization that humans have dreamed up. While the pictures themselves are most often posed, Slavin has always asked that his subjects arrange themselves in front of the camera, allowing natural hierarchies, group dynamics and indications of status to emerge. Says Slavin of his process, “I walk a delicate line between giving general instructions and allowing the group free rein to express itself while I watch individuals who jockey for position, thrusting a shoulder in front of the next person or wearing the widest smile, while others recede into the background, who are posing only to be a part of something larger—the group. My role is to capture a complete image, incorporating the eccentricities of human behavior that have emerged naturally from the multitude of personalities … I want my work to affirm our self identity within our public persona; to affirm the joy of being together rather than being apart. My intention is to intensely glimpse that kind of human spirit through the lens of my camera.”
When Two or More Are Gathered Together is a unique portrait of America itself and its idealistic underpinnings of individuality and liberty, memorialized in the nostalgic photographs of the ’70s, a time far removed both from the present day and from our present psyche. Originally published in 1976 by Farrar Strauss & Giroux, this new expanded edition, edited with text by Kevin Moore, includes group portraits taken over a span of 50 years.
Neal Slavin (born 1941) graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture. He has published three photobooks: Portugal (1971), When Two or More Are Gathered Together (1976) and Britons (1986). He directed and produced the 2001 film Focus, based on Arthur Miller’s novel of the same name.

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Neal Slavin (born 1941) graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture. He has published three photobooks: Portugal (1971), When Two or More Are Gathered Together (1976) and Britons (1986). He directed and produced the 2001 film Focus, based off of Arthur Miller’s novel of the same name.

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This expanded fifty-year anniversary edition of When Two or More Are Gathered Together revisits the question of social unity in the United States and includes new subjects-dogs, fencers and chambermaids-some photographed as recently as 2023.

Neal Slavin began taking group portraits in the early 1970s, intrigued by the social dynamics of groups and the motivations behind their formation. While the pictures themselves were most often posed, Slavin instructed his subjects to arrange themselves, allowing natural hierarchies and indications of status to emerge. When the series was first published in 1974, it was recognized as an instant landmark in the emerging field of color photography, a field that included photographers such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. Regarded as something of a deadpan stunt, yet framed as a serious social experiment, When Two or More Are Gathered Together was appreciated for its surprising insights into American social life. Fifty years later, on the eve of a presidential election, the United States grapples with profound social division and political unrest.
An essay by art historian Kevin Moore offers historical context for this timely and relevant body of early color photography.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Damiani
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 8862088299
• ISBN 13: 9788862088299
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Herausgeber: Moore Kevin
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Abrams & Chronicle Vertrieb; info@abramsandchronicle.co.uk; ; 22-24 Ely Place 1st Floor; London; EC1N 6TE; Vereinigtes Königreich