AVEDON, Richard - Im Hinblick - AS GERMAN EDITION of Nothing Personal

Background information

"When this book of photographs, 'Nothing Personal,' the joint book project of school friends Richard AVEDON and James Baldwin, appeared in 1964, it tested the public's ability and willingness to endure ambiguity and contradiction too severely. What did the renowned fashion photographer and the celebrated author want to achieve with this work, which, uncommented and seemingly indiscriminately, juxtaposed photographs of black and white, poor and rich U.S. Americans and, with Baldwin's bitterly wicked text, exposed the violence- and racism-afflicted core of the American psyche? Heavily criticized upon its publication, 'In View' (original title: Nothing Personal) is now considered a milestone of the modern photobook. Richard AVEDON, who in parallel to fashion photography had long been successfully engaged in street photography and had published numerous iconic celebrity portraits, thus presented his second sensational photo book, after the volume 'Observations' had already appeared in 1959 in collaboration with the writer Truman Capote. 'Nothing Personal' appeared at a turning point in American history, at least on paper: in 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson, successor to JFK, who had been assassinated the previous year, signed the Civil Rights Act, a civil rights law that desegregated public institutions. At the signing, Johnson, a Democrat, called on Americans to 'clean out the last vestiges of injustice in America' and 'drain the wells of racist poison.' A pious wish that would make little difference to social reality to this day. Hilton Als, a former colleague of Richard AVEDON at the New Yorker and a connoisseur of Baldwin's work, traces the genesis of Nothing Personal, documents the friendship and creative relationship between Richard AVEDON and James Baldiwn, and describes the immense impact Nothing Personal had on his own life as well. To coincide with this publication, New York's Pace Gallery presented an all-inclusive retrospective of Richard AVEDON's photographs and documents from 'Nothing Personal'." (© Taschen Verlag, 2017)

Content

In the photographic volume 'In View,' Richard AVEDON reveals his political commitment to a more just America in a subtly through-composed series of portrait shots that shows representatives of the white establishment next to civil rights activists, pop stars next to inmates of a mental institution, artists, scientists, former slaves, the saturated America as well as a traumatized one; former President Dwight D. Eisenhower is followed by Malcolm X, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell by one of the bomber pilots who prepared the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, uniformed U.S. Nazis by the naked, gay, Jewish beatnik Allen Ginsberg. James Baldwin's vitriol-saturated and intensely personal essay paints a picture of a society that is crude, unloving, and driven by greed, only to conclude with equal hope: 'You have to say yes to life and embrace it wherever you find it-and you find it in bad places.' The reprint offered here of Richard AVEDON's book of photographs 'In View' (original title 'Nothing Personal') is supplemented by a 72-page companion booklet containing unpublished photographs, correspondence between the two friends - James Baldwin and Richard AVEDON - and an essay by Pulitzer Prize winner Hilton Als.

Additional information

Designed by legendary art director Marvin ISRAEL, 'Nothing Personal' is a triumph of minimalism. The oversized book in its own slipcase and the striking arrangement of text and photographs revolutionized the presentation and packaging of photography books. The.edition offered here is a faithful reprint of the book, which has been out of print for decades, produced in collaboration with the Richard Avedon Foundation.

About US-american photographer, Richard AVEDON (1932-2004)

Photo books by as well as with works by Richard AVEDON