Anastasia Samoylova: Adaptation

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Description

The first monograph of trailblazing photographer Anastasia Samoylova is a vital - and gently humorous - meditation on environmentalism, consumer culture and our disorientating times.

Adaptation is the first career survey on Anastasia Samoylova, one of the most dynamic image makers to have emerged in recent years. Bringing together her six major bodies of work, it reveals the enormous range of artistic influences and ideas that inform her art, as well as the threads of connection that unite them. While each series explores different themes, they share a formal beauty, a masterly use of colour and an original approach to visual culture for which she is rightly celebrated.

Russian born and now a native of Florida, Samoylova moves between observational photography and studio practice, often incorporating collage and painting. Her virtuoso compositions are layered meditations on an everyday life made precarious by rising sea levels, image overload, gentrification and corporate culture. This is a provocative vision of the 21st century, at once sublimely beautiful and incisive in its assessment of the challenges we face.

Reviews

'In these worlds thick with signs and symbols, Samoylova prompts viewers to venture into the urban world, to look more closely at their layered surroundings' - Aesthetica
'Water is mercurially beautiful, as Samoylova shows in her shimmering reflected surfaces, but it will sooner or later cover everything' - The New York Times
'Few artists of our time have a sensibility like Samoylova. She sees in the ordinary world the visual cues to reflect on what affects us all and translating it into solid and attractive photographic projects' - Rica Cerbarano
'Samoylova is quickly cementing her position as one of the most intriguing image makers working today' - Vogue

Author Bio

Anastasia Samoylova is an American, born in the USSR in 1984. Her previous books include Floridas (2022), Flood Zone (2019) and Image Cities (2022). David Campany is a renowned writer and curator with particular expertise in American photography. His many books include William Klein: YES (2023), The Open Road: Photography and The American Road Trip (2014) and Walker Evans: the Magazine Work (2014). He is Curator at Large for the International Center of Photography, New York. Lucy Sante is a Belgian-born American writer, critic, artist and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Mia Fineman is Curator of Photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.