By Suzanne Révy
A traveler wanders in a foreign land and makes pictures of places that are novel to his eyes. Another wanders the maze of streets in his urban neighborhood, photographing everyday pedestrians on sidewalks, children playing and a parade of crawling cars. Both have camera and film, pursuing a rich tradition in the history of photography. Observations recorded, their prints are testimony to keen and careful seeing. Two recently published books embrace this esteemed photographic practice in very different ways. Teju Cole’s Fernweh (MACK 2020) features his “anti-tourist” color film pictures of Switzerland created over the course of four years and a half dozen trips to the land chocolate, Alps and banks. In contrast, Laurent B. Chevalier has mined the streets of his Brooklyn neighborhood, recording the familiar rhythms of daily life in black and white in Enough (Kris Graves Projects, 2020). Each of these books carries readers though an enticing visual journey of exploration and affirmation.
Teju Cole’s absorbing photographs in Fernweh reveal a fascination with small details that invite discerning inspection. Within his vivid landscapes, spatial and textural arrangements are deftly juxtaposed, resisting the predictable postcard views that boast brilliant blue skies and snowcapped peaks. But like many posters designed to lure visitors to this mountainous idyll, the book references classic Swiss graphic design with an elongated shape and bright red cover. His pictures, while the antithesis of the typical tourist snap, are even accompanied by fragments of text lifted from a Beadeker travel guide published in 1872. Cole notes that Switzerland was seminal to the advancement of 19th century travel photography. As he roams from urban centers to small chalet-dotted villages and motors across one of its many lakes, Cole demonstrates an atypical reverence for the utilitarian architecture of bus stops or ski lifts. In emphasizing the textures of these landscapes, he re-invents the travel photograph.
Cole is well-traveled. Born in the U.S., he has resided in sprawling, crowded Congo and New York City and was introduced to Switzerland during a six-month fellowship. A study in contrasts with his urban roots, Cole became enamored with Switzerland’s small pedestrian-friendly urban centers and spectacular vertical geology. There are very few people in his pictures, though one notably strong exception – a figure through a window in a ferry boat – recalls a well-known Robert Adams photograph. Although evidence of human labor is abundant, Cole’s attention is focused on a sense of place. He renders many scenes with the classical palette of a Renaissance painting while others accentuate the monochromatic, simplified notes of modernism. Some are visual puns or puzzles, but all spring from the fresh eye of an outsider. Having lived there myself as a teenager, Cole’s unadorned yet complex images have stirred my sense of longing – or “Fernweh” – to return to this faraway place and to appreciate, as Cole writes, its “paradoxically mysterious clarity.”
While Cole’s clarity might conjure the strains of a classical string quartet, Laurent B. Chevalier’s book Enough pulsates with the improvisational jazz rhythms of a thriving Black urban community. He employs grainy black and white film to survey neighborhood children dashing on scooters, teens grabbing pick-up basketball games, subway commuters, parents scurrying on errands and sweltering residents gathering around the refreshing spray of an open fire hydrant. The book recalls Roy DeCarava’s lively pictures of Harlem from the 1940’s and 50’s and Robert Frank’s grainy 35mm images from The Americans in the 1950’s. However, Chevalier’s pictures are unmistakably contemporary, and like DeCarava, he delves deeply into the well-known to shape a broader view of humanity. Chevalier’s imagery is a reverent embrace of Black Americans, a modern picture revealed through the acclaimed tradition of street photography.

Laurent B. Chevalier from the book Enough (Kris Graves Projects, 2020), book photographed by Suzanne Révy

Laurent B. Chevalier from the book Enough (Kris Graves Projects, 2020), book photographed by Suzanne Révy

Laurent B. Chevalier from the book Enough (Kris Graves Projects, 2020), book photographed by Suzanne Révy
Enough opens with a poignant essay by playwright Cyrus Aaron and is accompanied by Dr. Jamila Lyiscott’s poetry affirming the grace of quotidian moments rendered in Chevalier’s images. In concert, Chevalier’s photographs and the book’s writings attest that to claim a space and live without fear confers dignity and enables a community to flourish. Through this empathic rendering of his own dynamic and diverse community, Chevalier elevates the Black American narrative, dismantles destructive stereotypes and asserts that Black Lives Matter.

Laurent B. Chevalier from the book Enough with poetry by Dr. Jamila Lyiscott (Kris Graves Projects, 2020), book photographed by Suzanne Révy

Laurent B. Chevalier from the book Enough (Kris Graves Projects, 2020), book photographed by Suzanne Révy
The visual threads that Cole and Chevalier follow could not be more different, yet the photographs in each of their books reflects careful observations and both emanate love for the people and places they encounter. Whether exploring faraway or nearby, both artists are gifted in conveying their innate curiosity, guiding readers on stirring visual treks enveloped in a reverie for the simple pleasures of existence.

(Featured Image )Teju Cole Fernweh, published by MACK 2020 (left) and Laurent B. Chevalier Enough, published by Kris Graves Projects (right).
For more information:
Fernweh
Photography and essay by Teju Cole
Fragments of text are adapted from Switzerland: Handbook for Travelers by Karl Baedecker, 1872
Published by MACK Books, London 2020
https://mackbooks.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/fernweh-br-teju-cole
Enough
Photographs by Laurent B. Chevalier
Essay by Cyrus Aaron
Poetry by Dr. Jamila Lyiscott
Published by Kris Graves Projects, LLC 2020
https://www.krisgravesprojects.com/book/enough