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Marc Almond: Adored and Explored
64 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
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January 25, 2010
a concise surveillance dossier of cult cabaret artiste and former pop star marc almond, compiled for some imagined aesthetic secret service.
our agents are photographer jamie mcleod and poet jeremy reed. mcleod's photographs, all black and white and taken with the complicity of his subject are undated, but appear to span from some time after almond's departure from pop faction 'soft cell' through date of publication in 2001. each is accompanied on the facing page by a dedicated text from reed.
the photographs suffer from reproduction in such a small volume, often reed's lush descriptions betray the scale of the photographs, describing details gleaned from viewing full scale prints. it is clear that mcleod is a talented photographer but i was left with the same feeling viewing the photographs that i get looking at monet's water lily paintings or van gogh in art books. that certitude that there is a sensual dimension totally absent in the mediated experience.
reed's texts are simultaneously insightful and intimate, and surprisingly terse and awkward almost as if he was forced to rush his thoughts or had difficulty saying what he wanted to say in the space allotted him. there are other books by reed about almond and i feel fairly certain that they benefit from allowing reed to spread his wings and fly but what we have here is all potential and promises.
despite these flaws, it is apparent that mcleod and reed are longtime friends of almond and that makes this volume worth the time spent even for non-devotees of almond. what is communicated by our collaborators makes for an interesting survey of a fascinating dark star still gyrating persistently with undiminished vitality and daring, well along the arc of his trajectory.
our agents are photographer jamie mcleod and poet jeremy reed. mcleod's photographs, all black and white and taken with the complicity of his subject are undated, but appear to span from some time after almond's departure from pop faction 'soft cell' through date of publication in 2001. each is accompanied on the facing page by a dedicated text from reed.
the photographs suffer from reproduction in such a small volume, often reed's lush descriptions betray the scale of the photographs, describing details gleaned from viewing full scale prints. it is clear that mcleod is a talented photographer but i was left with the same feeling viewing the photographs that i get looking at monet's water lily paintings or van gogh in art books. that certitude that there is a sensual dimension totally absent in the mediated experience.
reed's texts are simultaneously insightful and intimate, and surprisingly terse and awkward almost as if he was forced to rush his thoughts or had difficulty saying what he wanted to say in the space allotted him. there are other books by reed about almond and i feel fairly certain that they benefit from allowing reed to spread his wings and fly but what we have here is all potential and promises.
despite these flaws, it is apparent that mcleod and reed are longtime friends of almond and that makes this volume worth the time spent even for non-devotees of almond. what is communicated by our collaborators makes for an interesting survey of a fascinating dark star still gyrating persistently with undiminished vitality and daring, well along the arc of his trajectory.
Displaying 1 of 1 review