CONTIS, Sam & Dorothea LANGE - Day Sleeper / AS ORIGINALLY SEALED 2ND PRINT RUN

Background information

"In this book, 'Day Sleeper', Sam CONTIS presents a new window onto the work of the iconic American photographer Dorothea LANGE. Drawing from Dorothea LANGE’s extensive archive, Sam CONTIS constructs a fragmented, unfamiliar world centred around the figure of the day sleeper – at once a symbol of respite and oblivion. 'Day Sleeper' will be featured alongside other works of Sam CONTIS in the exhibition 'Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures' at the Museum of Modern Art, February–May 2020.

Content

The photo volume 'Day Sleeper' shows us one artist through the eyes of another, with Sam CONTIS responding to resonances between her and Dorothea LANGE’s ways of seeing.  It reveals a largely unknown side of Dorothea LANGE, and includes previously unseen photographs of her family, portraiture from her studio, and pictures made in the streets of San Francisco and the East Bay.

In the press

"A collection of pictures so contemporary in feel, it's difficult to reconcile them with the Lange we know." (© Wall Street Journal Magazine)
"Untethered from the heavy responsibility of telling the stories of people in dire situations, [these photographs] delight in the texture of cotton shirts and weathered hands, more ambivalent and playful than [Lange's] state-sponsored work." (© The Independent)

About the photographers, Dorothea LANGE & Sam CONTIS

Photo books by and with works on Dorothea LANGE

Photo books by Sam CONTIS