'A Handful of Dust. From the Cosmic to the Domestic'

Background Information

"'A Handful of Dust' is a speculative history of the last century told by American critic and photographer David Campany, and a visual journey through some of his most unusual images. David Campany's cross-references range widely, from aerial reconnaissance and the American dust bowl to Mussolini's last car ride and the wars in Iraq. 
The volume 'a Handful of Dust' accompanies eponymous exhibition by David Campany curated for Le Bal, Paris (October 16, 2015 - January 17, 2016), featuring works by MAN RAY, John DIVOLA, Sophie RISTELHUEBER, Mona KUHN, Gerhard RICHTER, Xavier RIBAS, Nick WAPLINGTON, Jeff WALL, as well as many other Fotograf:innen and alongside anonymous press photos, postcards, magazines as well as films.

Content

Let's assume that Modernism begins in October 1922. A small French avant-garde journal publishes a photograph of a dust-covered glass plate. The photographer is MAN RAY, the glass is by Marcel Duchamp. First they called it a view from an airplane. Then they called it 'Dust Breeding.' It's abstract, it's realistic. It's a work of art, it's a document. It's outrageous and riveting. Cameras have to be kept away from dust, but they are very photogenic. 
At the same time, a small English journal publishes TS Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land'. 'I'll show you fear in a handful of dust.' And what if dust really is the key to the intervening years? Why don't we like it? Is it cosmic? We are stardust, after all. Is it domestic Inevitable and unruly? Is dust the enemy of the modern order, its repressed other, its nemesis? But it has a story to tell from the other side." (slightly adapted text, © Mack Books, 2015)

About the American author and photographer, David Campany

Books by and with essays by David Campany