OUR PICKS OF THE MONTH
MAY 2012
© pHaidon/vii
BOOK
The World at VII
It has been a decade since the agency
VII was formed as a photographers’
collective. This book gathers together for
the first time a collection of individual
stories told by VII photographers—Marcus
Bleasdale, Alexandra Boulat, Ron Haviv,
Ed Kashi, Gary Knight, Antonin Kratochvil,
Joachim Ladefoged, Christopher Morris,
Franco Pagetti, Stephanie Sinclair and
John Stanmeyer—over the past 20 years,
bringing readers a compelling look at
how several major events have affected
the lives of communities and individuals
throughout the world. Among the stories
we see are Haviv’s coverage of the
post-Cold War dissolution of Yugoslavia
during the Nineties; Morris’s photographs
of the first Chechen War; Stanmeyer’s
four-year investigation of AIDS in Asia;
and the late Boulat’s exploration of the
contemporary lives of women in the
Middle East. We also see how the agency
collectively covered major conflicts like
Darfur, or events like the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami. “By one measure, they
have become, per capita, the most
award-winning cadre of consistently
working photojournalists over the
course of the past decade,” writes Vanity
Fair editor of creative development
David Friend in his introduction to the
book, which includes a brief history
of VII’s formation. Ultimately the
book is a form of recognition for the
varied and extraordinary work these
photojournalists have done and
continue to do.
EXHIBIT
Ritts Revisited
From the mid-Eighties through the Nineties, Herb Ritts inspired and influenced
a generation of photographers, and his sexy, black-and-white esthetic is on full
display at the Getty Center’s exhibit “Herb Ritts: L. A. Style.” See the naturalistic
and revealing celebrity portraits that made him a star in Hollywood; the
innovative fashion spreads that set him apart from his East Coast competition;
and the sculpture-like male nudes that evoked
both strength and elegance. With over 100
images on view as well as examples of Ritts’s
motion work, including music videos and
television commercials, this survey will make
you rediscover what you admired most about
the iconic and prolific photographer.
“Herb Ritts: L. A. Style”
Through August 26, 2012
Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049
Telephone: 310-440-7300
www.getty.edu
© Herb ritts Foundation
“Versace Dress, Back View, El Mirage,” 1990, is
included in the “Herb Ritts: L. A. Style” exhibit.
BOOK
Trouble in Paradise
© Ken LigHt
“Food Line, Westside Community Center,
Mendota, California,” 2009, from Valley
of Shadows and Dreams.
America’s system of industrial food production is under scrutiny because Michael Pollan,
Marion Nestle, Eric Schlosser and other writers have been raising questions about its social
and environmental impacts. Yet industrial farming continues unabated in California’s
Central Valley, under the massive application of petrochemicals and the back-breaking
work of increasingly unwelcome immigrants. Enter documentary photographer Ken Light
and his wife, writer Melanie Light, with Valley of Shadows and Dreams, their new book
about the troubling legacy of big agriculture, and its connection to the same money-
driven politics that brought us the housing bubble and financial crisis. “The story in the
valley is parallel to the story in banking; the same kinds of relationships exist between
Congress and agricultural industry groups,” Melanie explains in the preface. “People are
really angry and prepared to take action … This book is our attempt to add to that national
debate.” With his black-and-white images, Ken offers a sympathetic portrait of hard-
scrabble laborers barely hanging on in a landscape that appears
to have been subjugated for profit, from the laser-leveled fields
and drought-dry concrete irrigation canals to the new housing
developments that sprouted and promptly went bankrupt. The
images conjure the work of Dorothea Lange and others who documented the plight of rural America for
the Farm Security Administration during the Thirties. As Melanie asserts in the preface, “The struggle
to maintain the balance between freedom and regulation occurs constantly and every generation must
learn anew the lynchpins of that struggle and rein in the excesses.”
Valley of Shadows
and Dreams
By Ken Light and
Melanie Light
Heyday, 2012
Hardcover, 176 pages
$40
EXHIBIT
Life in the ‘Stans of Central Asia
Even though Andrew Rowat’s latest work “Crumbled
Empire” doesn’t show the people he encountered while
he traveled through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the places he photographed
tell the story of their post-Communist world. But rather
than focus solely on the economic hardships the region has experienced, Rowat
captures a little bit of the humor of their
surroundings instead, such as an oven being
used as a makeshift cupboard in a kitchen or the
embroidered portrait of a drug baron hanging
on the wall. Equal parts travel and documentary
imagery, this exhibit shows the much-
photographed ’Stans in a new light.
The kitchen at Hotel
Aralsk, in Aralsk,
Kazakhstan, from
“Crumbled Empire.”
Questions Without Answers: The World
in Pictures by the Photographers of VII
Introduction by David Friend
Phaidon
Hardcover, 368 pages
450 images, $75
“Crumbled Empire”
May 1 – 27, 2012
The Elaine Fleck Gallery
888 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario M6J 1G3
Telephone: 416-469-8005
www.elainefleckgallery.com
