Overdue Books!

What Makes It Great? / Featured / January 14, 2015

For those who love to escape into a delicious novel, delight in forays through a bookstore or reminisce a childhood languishing over library books, prepare to take a flight of fancy. “Expired” photographs by Kerry Mansfield, “The Last Bookstores” photographs by Bryan David Griffith and “Photobook 2014”, featuring the winning books of a competition juried by Karen Davis (Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY) and Paula Tognarelli (Executive Director & Curator, Griffin Museum of Photography) are exhibiting in three galleries at the Griffin Museum through March 1^st, 2015.

Weller Book Works, Salt Lake City, Utah, from the series “The Last Bookstores: America’s Resurgent Independents” by Bryan David Griffith (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography)

At a time when electronic readers and mega-retailers like amazon.com are threatening to put the neighborhood bookstore out of business, Bryan David Griffith embarked upon a documentary project to photograph – using old-fashioned film in a large format camera – “bookstores old and new, large and small, iconic and obscure, in cities and towns across America.”

Exterior of City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, from the series “The Last Bookstores: America’s Resurgent Independents” by Bryan David Griffith (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography)

Interior Bulletin Board at City Lights Books, San Francisco, from the series “The Last Bookstores: America’s Resurgent Independents” by Bryan David Griffith (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography)

Large color images of peopled, expansive reading rooms or cozy nooks and crannies, exterior signage and interior bulletin boards, all carry the flair of human contact. Black and white images of friendly booksellers and their committed staff accompany these images of their stores, reflecting hours of interviews conducted by Griffith in conjunction with this project. “Why do these stores persist? What will we lose if they go away?”, Griffith asks.

Elliot Bay Book Company, Seattle, from the series “The Last Bookstores: America’s Resurgent Independents” by Bryan David Griffith (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography)

Happily, Griffith’s imagery reflects the fact that independent booksellers are fighting back, actually growing in number. He captures their faithful customer base, coffees in hand, relishing their books, comfy seats, even conversation. He constructs cleverly inclusive compositions and imbues his shots with warm hues, provoking a desire to enter the photographs. Griffith’s images speak volumes, in a resounding retort to his questions, without uttering a word.

“Old Yeller, Covers Front & Back” from the series “Expired” by Kerry Mansfield (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography)

Kerry Mansfield leads a nostalgic tour through the hard-cover library books of yesteryear in her series “Expired”. Seeking to invoke each “book’s history and it’s shared, communal experience”, she photographs her volumes in the manner of post-mortem specimens, “as in the Victorian Era when family members only received the honor of documentation upon their demise.”

“Curious George Rides a Bike, Envelope Front & Back from the series “Expired” by Kerry Mansfield (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography)

Mansfield exalts the evidence of hands that touched these books, proof to all that they were well-read and well-loved. Her enlarged photographs emphasize texture, while her shadowing creates dimensionality. The “undeclared beauty” she finds in these worn out, expired library books that have found their way to “ex-library warehouses” exemplify their “wabi-sabi”, a Japanese term meaning the art of finding beauty in imperfection and embracing the natural cycle of life. The concept may be gentle but Mansfield’s vivid, hyper-realistic images confer the bold immediacy of childhood memory upon every photograph.

“Photobook 2014” hands-on exhibit in the Hall Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography (photo courtesy of Silke Hase)

PHOTOBOOK 2014, an annual competition open to photographers in the United States and abroad who have self-published a photobook, was offered by Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson NY for the fifth year. The competition results were exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery and forty-two books are now on exhibit in the Hall Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography through March 1^st, 2015. Karen Davis, co-director of the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY and Paula Tognarelli, executive director and curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography were the jurors for this hands-on exhibit. Not only can you peruse these creative volumes, but copies can be purchased by clicking on the link to Davis Orton Gallery, above. The Griffin Museum’s current three-gallery literary salute is a book lovers dream, long overdue.