NEW BOOK: Book Launch @ Aperture, June 1st

Alex Webb, cover of "The Suffering of Light" (Aperture), with an essay by Geoff Dyer

 

Please join us to celebrate the launch of Alex’s new book, The Suffering of Light, at Aperture at 6:30pm, which will include a conversation with photographer and critic Max Kozloff and a booksigning afterwards. (To take a look inside Alex’s new book, follow this link to the PhotoEye site.) And here’s a link to a portfolio of Alex’s work from the new book on the La Lettre site, courtesy of the Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, which will have a joint show of our work on Saturday, September 17th, from 2-4pm.

And below you’ll find a rough, homemade video of our Violet Isle show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, an exhibition mentioned in The New York Times on Sunday and reviewed in The Boston Globe on Tuesday, May 31st.   For those who are part of the “Two Looks” online community, please let us know if you get a chance to see Violet Isle at the MFA, Boston, which will be up until January 16, 2012.

By the way, if you visit the MFA by June 16th, be sure and stop by and see the photography show, “Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection,” which includes work by such noted photographers as Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Wright Morris, Alec Soth, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Mitch Epstein, Larry Sultan, Mike Smith, and Helen Levitt.–Rebecca Norris Webb

VIOLET ISLE at the MFA, BOSTON

Rebecca Norris Webb, "Havana, 2007" from the book, "Violet Isle"

What better way of celebrating our exhibition of Violet Isle at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, than with our work set to our favorite Cuban duet, “Silencio,” just launched as the latest Magnum in Motion?

We’d like give a special thanks to the Magnum In Motion team, especially to Phil Bicker and Adrian Kelterborn, who produced this presentation of Violet Isle.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

Alex Webb, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2007, from "Violet Isle"

Notes on “The Suffering of Light” @ Time.com

Alex Webb, "Erie, Pennsylvania, 2010," from "The Suffering of Light"

Perhaps it’s the poet in me, but I love the irony of being able to hold in my hands a series of intangible moments — and Alex’s new book of 30 years of color work is no exception.  

To see a slide show of images  — including the one above from Erie, Pennsylvania, which was the last photograph Alex took for THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT during a road trip with me driving from New York to South Dakota last summer, and, appropriately, the last photograph in the book — and to read Alex’s notes on the bookmaking process, please follow this link to TIME.COM, where you can also leave your comments.

In addition, here’s a link to an excerpt of the Geoff Dyer essay about Alex in the book, an excerpt recently posted on the GUARDIAN website.

For those in the New York area, please join us for the book launch of THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT at Aperture Foundation, 547 W. 27th on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1st at 6:30pm, which will include a conversation with noted critic Max Kozloff as well as a book signing. Alex and I hope to see many of you there.–Rebecca Norris Webb

TWO VIEWS: Alex at Alcobendas

Alex Webb, "Fort Sherman, Panama, 1999" from "The Suffering of Light"

Alex and I are in Alcobendas, Madrid, this week for the opening of his exhibition, “Selecciones: 1975-2004,” which was the result of his winning the Premio Internacional de Fotographia Alcobendas last year.  For our friends in Spain, hope you can help us celebrate Alex’s opening at the Centro de Arte Alcobendas at 7:30 pm on Thursday, May 12th.

For the TWO VIEWS column this month,  below is another one of my rough, homemade videos of our curating a wall of the exhibition this afternoon, even though we were somewhat jetlagged from a night flight from New York (Talk about intuitive editing!). And secondly, above you’ll find a rather mysterious image of Alex’s from his Alcobendas exhibition — and one that’s also in his new book — that was taken in Ft. Sherman, Panama, in 1999, a photograph of a U.S. military jungle warfare training camp.

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with a quote I came across this evening from one of my favorite poets, the Spanish poet Lorca, a quote which seems a fitting end to our first day in Madrid:  “Only mystery allows us to live, only mystery.”–Rebecca Norris Webb