Steven Henry Madoff

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Dawid

D has made a little opening in the stable earth of the known, a modest schism in the assumed equivalence between seeing and knowing. Steven Henry Madoff Spanning a prolific five decades, Dawid: This Is a Photograph is the first truly comprehensive publication tracing the work of the pioneering Swedish photographer. With his pared-down, intellectual yet markedly sensual conceptualism Dawid (Björn Dawidsson) was one of the first photographers to break with the prevailing documentary tradition in Sweden in the late 1970s and 80s and claim photography as an artistic medium. Focusing on the formal properties of everyday objects a simultaneous suspension, negation, and affirmation of form his images question our ingrained values and expectations, deconstructing the very foundation of photography from within. Experimentation is an important aspect of Dawid s work, including series of cameraless photography such as his Kemigrams. This willful decision to trade clarity for the porousness and labile mystery of things is not only an investigation of the depicted object but just as much a foray into the very fabric of photography, making the medium itself the subject of his work. This long-awaited book is Dawid s most extensive publication to date and includes a compelling essay by Steven Henry Madoff. Richly illustrated and generously designed, it gives each image its own contemplative space while still preserving the continuity necessary to understand the inner workings of over thirty of his most seminal series, from the late 1970s to today.