Living Trust by Buck Ellison. © Buck Ellison 2020 courtesy Loose Joints
Living Trust, by Buck Ellison
Sourcing actors, props and locations, Buck Ellison stages scenes of seemingly unremarkable everyday moments of the white American upper-middle-class: a ‘pasta night’, a family posing for the Christmas card, a couple going for ‘cheeseboard’ shopping. ‘Living Trust’ isn’t just an index of class markers, but an investigation of collective identity construction and the role of photography in the objectification of its visual language. The images unveil an unspoken language of wealth that appeals to most but it’s understood by few, ultimately leaving the viewer desiring and resenting the ambivalence of its beauty. Published by Loose Joints. buckellison.com; loosejoints.biz
Writer: Sara Fiorino
Mara kuya. © June Canedo
Mara kuya, by June Canedo
Mara kuya is meals being prepared, washing drying on a line, toys tied up, children playing in a pool; it is all that makes a family, even one divided by borders. The debut book from Brazil-born, New York-based photographer June Canedo retells the emotional impact of migration experienced by separated families, a politicised and polarising contemporary topic. Canedo shows us her grandmother gardening in Brazil, where she raised fourteen children, alongside a Fourth of July celebration in her aunt’s South Carolina backyard. By weaving space and time through her images mara kuya is both a personal and universal contemplation on citizenship status and mental health. Profits from the sale of the book will be donated to Inclusive Action, a charity that provides support for low-income urban communities. junecanedo.com
Writer: Sophie Gladstone
Extract from Études, by John Marx. Photography: John Sutton
Études, by John Marx
Études – The Poetry of Dreams + Other Fragments is a new book from ORO Editions, exploring the architectural drawings and poetry of San Francisco-based architect John Marx. Marx, a principal at Form4 Architecture, has contributed paintings for a series in The Architectural Review, and the richly detailed watercolours instantly evoke a sense of time and place that goes far beyond the conventional architectural rendering. There are over 80 images in the book, each conjuring up realms and forms that suggest a world of hazy neo-surrealism. One of the accompanying essays explores the historic role of watercolour in presenting architectural futures - it was the style of choice for centuries before photorealistic digital renders raised our expectations to stratospheric levels, removing all aspects of mystery in the process. Marx’s work operates on a different level, and the fragmentary, dream-like worlds his paintings conjure up are paired with his own poetry, created a rounded, immersive monograph designed to get lost in.
Writer: Jonathan Bell
Molly Matalon, When a Man Loves a Woman, published by Palm Studios
When a Man Loves a Woman, by Molly Matalon
Grapes crawl into a glass of water, statues embrace, a peach pit is left in the sun. Molly Matalon’s new book ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ is a journey through appealing surfaces and quiet encounters. The interplay between the symbolism of the objects and the subversion of the history of the ‘gaze’ lays bare Matalon’s reclamation of desire. By portraying her acquaintances, friends and lovers, the photographer engineers a vision that reframes the (gendered) performance of desire, where her day-to-day becomes a space to overturn dominant narratives of power and explore her longing for intimacy. mollymatalon.com; palmstudios.co.uk
Writer: Sara Fiorino
Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London
David Hockney: Drawing from life
David Hockney: Drawing from Life, celebrates more than 60 years of the revered artist’s intimate portraiture with texts by Sarah Howgate and Isabel Seligman. Featuring drawings from the 1950s to the present day, the book is a fascinating window into the artist’s creative development and to his personal life, focusing on depictions of himself and those close to him: including his muse, Celia Birtwell; his mother, Laura Hockney; and his friends, the curator, Gregory Evans, and Maurice Payne. It’s through these portrait drawings of close friends that Hockney experimented with new styles and expressed his admiration for artistic influences such as Holbein and Picasso. Highlights also include a series of new portraits, pencil drawings created in Paris during the early 1970s and a selection of Polaroid portraits from the 1980s. The book was published in correspondence with the first major exhibition devoted to Hockney’s drawings at London’s National Portrait Gallery, which is closed to the public until further notice. npg.org.uk; hockney.com
Writer: Phoebe Gardner