Henry Leutwyler: Document

(Hardback)

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Description

Henry Leutwyler's new book Document reveals the unseen, the humble, and the intimate within iconic moments: the first moonwalk, political assassinations, the lives of musicians, artists, and athletes. The product of twelve years of discovery and dreaming, Document is a collection of portraits of things: Mahatma Ghandi's sandal, Alan Shepard's golf club, Janis Joplin's acoustic guitar, Jack Ruby's handgun. Leutwyler shows us these objects close up-straight on and without backdrop-a style that is equal parts still life, portraiture, and crime scene photography. Isolated from their contexts and owners, the objects have our full attention, and although we have never seen them, they feel utterly familiar. These are authentic objects, imperfect and unrestored, and in their scuffs, scratches, dirt and wear they powerfully evoke presence. They are the testaments of bodily histories, the traces of personalities, and the stuff of our collective memory. Document invites us to engage with our "icons" in wholly new ways, and to see our history differently, through the unexpected emotional charge of singular objects.

Reviews

This notion of magical contagion is part of what makes the photographs in Document, a new book published by Steidl and exhibit at Foley Gallery by Henry Leutwyler, so transfixing. Over the course of 12 years, Leutwyler, a specialist in celebrity portraiture, photographed 124 objects that were somehow connected to famous or notorious individuals, all deceased.--Carey Dunne "Hyperallergic"
Though he's best known as a celebrity photographer, his photographs in Document showcase a different iteration of his minimalist style. Rather than celebrities, the pages of this book are filled with interesting objects owned by intriguing people from history, pop culture, the arts, and sports. The result is an encompassing and unconventional collection of images ranging from Mohandas Gandhi's wire-frame spectacles to Bob Marley's charred-black first guitar to Julia Child's madeleine baking tray. Seemingly ordinary items assume added significance when their owners' identities are revealed.--Jeff Campagna "Smithsonian"