Ed Panar: Golden Palms

by Charlotte Cotton (Contributor), Ed Panar (Editor), Jason Fulford (Editor)

When Ed Panar moved to Los Angeles, he opted not to get a car. Or a high-end camera. For two years. His compact was, "quick, cheap and direct, and that seemed to suit L.A." The color photographs collected in Golden Palms reflect Panar's walking life there, with the cumulative effect of a subtly funny tour through the city's lost back streets--parts of contemporary Los Angeles that most people would simply speed past in their cars. His subjects, including "The 405," "Near Ventura Boulevard," "Tuesday Afternoon," "Summer" and "Coming Home," were often, he says, "like cartoon characters I'd find while I was walking around, like the rainspout attached to the wall, in a city where it doesn't rain." And like that rain spout, many of the images capture especially peculiar intersections of nature and architecture, like a set of gnarled, clawlike tree roots gripping the sidewalk, a squirrel ignoring a trash can next to his tree, or palm trees photographed against stucco walls, looking like Dr. Seussian vegetation straight out of The Lorax. With an interview by the esteemed photo historian and curator, Charlotte Cotton.

Hardcover

First published June 1, 2007

About the author

Charlotte Cotton is the curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Before joining the museum in 2007, Charlotte was curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1992-2004), the head of programming at The Photographers Gallery (2004-2005) in London. She moved to the US in 2005 and has been visiting professor at Yale University and visiting critic at colleges including Bard, SVA, Cranbrook, Otis, Art Institute Chicago, USC, and UC Riverside.

She is the author of Imperfect Beauty (2000), Guy Bourdin (2003), Then Things Went Quiet (2003) and The Photograph as Contemporary Art (2005). She is also the founding editor of wordswithoutpictures.org.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strangely static and uninhabited street view of LA. Even the rare animal (dog or bird) or car is motionless. Sort of interesting, I guess, but I got bored with it pretty quickly. Maybe I'm not enough of a photographartiste to appreciate it. Maybe stucco houses aren't my thing. Maybe it was just that I've seen all this walking around various bits of LA myself (I thought his assertion that no one else sees these bits because they all drive was either disingenuous or indicative of his unfamiliarity with the area).

But seriously, stuff like this:

I see sights like this all the time. And I can take photographs of random trees and houses that look as good. But I don't expect people to pay me for them. And I know Panar can take shots that are much more interesting. Photography friends, if you can explain what I'm missing, I'd appreciate it.

Also, I'm not sure what Cotton did to get authorial credit, since there isn't any text besides a single sheet insert of small print and easy losability.

Now on to The Architect's Brother!