Evidence

by Larry Sultan (Editor), Mike Mandel (Editor)

In 1977 photographers Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel sifted through thousands of photographs in the files of the Bechtel Corporation, the Beverly Hills Police Department, the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Stanford Research Institute and a hundred other corporations, American government agencies, and educational, medical and technical institutions. They were looking for photographs that were made and used as transparent documents and purely objective instruments--as evidence, in short. Selecting 50 of the best, they printed these images with the care you would expect to find in a high-quality art photography book, publishing them in a simple, limited-edition volume titled Evidence. The concept for the book was clear: select photographs intended to be used as objective evidence and show that it is never that simple. Now an undisputed classic in the photo world, considered a seminal harbinger of conceptual photography, Evidence is nearly impossible to find. This new edition is being published in recognition of the project's continued relevance, and will contain a facsimile copy of the original book plus a newly commissioned scholarly essay by Sandra Phillips of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Additionally, this edition will include a new spread of images and a group of black-and-white illustrations selected by the artists from an archive of photographs that were not included in the original book.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction

108 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Larry Sultan grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley, which became a source of inspiration for a number of his projects. His work blends documentary and staged photography to create images of the psychological as well as physical landscape of suburban family life.

Sultan’s pioneering book and exhibition Pictures From Home (1992) was a decade long project that features his own mother and father as its primary subjects, exploring photography’s role in creating familial mythologies. Using this same suburban setting, his book, The Valley (2004) examined the adult film industry and the area’s middle-class tract homes that serve as pornographic film sets. Katherine Avenue, (2010) the exhibition and book, explored Sultan’s three main series, Pictures From Home, The Valley, and Homeland along side each other to further examine how Sultan’s images negotiate between reality and fantasy, domesticity and desire, as the mundane qualities of the domestic surroundings become loaded cultural symbols. In 2012, the monograph, Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel was published to examine in depth the thirty plus year collaboration between these artists as they tackled numerous conceptual projects together that includes Billboards, How to Read Music In One Evening, Newsroom, and the seminal photography book Evidence, a collection of found institutional photographs, first published in 1977.

Larry Sultan’s work has been exhibited and published widely and is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he was also recognized with the Bay Area Treasure Award in 2005. Sultan served as a Distinguished Professor of Photography at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946, Larry Sultan passed away at his home in Greenbrae, California in 2009.

Reviews

[Philip Crowther · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of photographs scrapped from corporate and government archives of photographs intended to be unbiased records (primarily records of scientific research): all of the photos started out their journey as evidence. Then, they were re-contextualized by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel as objects worth of aesthetic consideration, changing them into something new. They come alive in this book as art and show an amazing level of poetry and beauty I would not have expected.


I think the thing that is so charming to me about these images is that each photograph on its own, and entirely on accident, is somehow able to achieve aesthetically what many photographers will spend years and years trying to figure out how to do on purpose - little tricks of the frame and the negative/positive space that, if seen over and over again in the work of a single artist, would signify a true mastery of the craft and that, when seen in any single photography, open up the potential of the photograph as a work of poetry. It's hard to articulate just how wonderful some of these little tricks are, or even necessarily what they are, but if anyone reading this is a fan of abstract art, it's that same quality that you'll find in great works of abstract expressionism that differentiate them from the pieces produced in your wine and paint night with your friends - the thing that explains why the canvas you dripped 10 different colors of paint onto at random just doesn't live up to the Pollock that inspired it. There is just something incredible to me about anything found out there in the world that possesses these qualities almost as if out of nowhere - little, magical pieces of existence speaking in the same vaulted vernacular as the great works of art. Every photograph contained in this book falls into that category for me, and together they achieve this kind of step into the metaphysical for me.

Overall, I find this collection absolutely astounding, and I would highly suggest anyone with an interest in art or photography take a gander - (also, and this is a pro tip here: you won't have to actually get the book if you want to see the images, all of them are available for free on Larry Sultan's website - I really only got the physical copy bc I have a pretty intense book buying problem and increasingly poor self-control when it comes to art books.)

I'd say this is tied with Robert Frank's The Americans as my favorite photobook, so definitely check it out if you get a chance (but also definitely don't tell me if you don't like the pics, I will judge you and I'd really prefer to not have to think less of my friends for choosing Falsity.)

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. The mystery, alienation. Fragments. Think I had been been looking for this book long before I knew it existed. Captures far better what I’ve attempted with some personal projects. Absolutely inspiring.

[dv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro del 1977 che ha contribuito a dar forma ai successivi 40 anni di fotografia almeno tanto quanto le quasi contemporanee esposizioni e libri dei "New topographics" e di William Eggleston. Al centro di questo lavoro è l’uso concettuale dell’immagine d’archivio e l’elevazione dell’opera di “editing” a un valore forse più grande di quello delle immagini stesse (impensabili, senza quest’opera, autori come Jason Fulford). In più, un libro che senza voler essere politico lo è, nel suo presentarsi come critica della tecnocrazia e del dominio dell’uomo sulla natura. Capolavoro della storia della fotografia.

[Adam Thorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book. I'm in awe of it. It excites and terrifies me in equal parts. Full of found images from archives of science labs, police departments, and hospitals, this book contains some of the edgiest, most exciting pictures I've ever seen. They were all taken solely for evidentiary purposes, and it's the best fine art photography book there is. It puts every photographer to shame. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make a body of work with half as much excitement and wonder.

[Stephanie McGarrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting conceptual photography book. I didn't know anything about Sultan and Mandel going into this, or conceptual photography in general, so the postscript was informative. There are no comments on the "evidence," only a long alphabetical list of the institutions, companies and agencies. where Sultan and Mandel were granted access to tons of photographs hidden away in archives. I can't imagine how many they went through before they selected these images.

[Karen Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does each photo must have a caption to limit it's meaning?
The obscurity or even absurdity generated by the lack of context. All the images are devoid of aesthetic choices, since photography was used as a tool rather than an art practice.

[Chris Motta · Rating 5 out of 5]

editing mastery

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite of all of Sultan's work. From concept to execution, this book is a revelation in photography.

[Sean Patrick Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely monumental in the world of photobooks and contemporary art - if you've ever looked at a sequence of images and asked "what am I looking at?", you've probably got Evidence to thank.

[Nene]

na aula
no powerpoint