Introduction by Joel Coen. Afterword by Frances McDormand.
"I found it a daunting task to choose just a few images from Lee Friedlander's vast career. Where to start...?" –Joel Coen
In his selection of 70 photographs by Lee Friedlander, acclaimed filmmaker Joel Coen focuses on Friedlander’s beautifully strange sense of composition, in which images are off kilter and visually dense, bisected and carved by stop signs and utility poles, store windows and reflections, car doors and windshields or shadows and trees. "As a filmmaker, I liked the idea of creating a sequence that would highlight Lee’s unusual approach to framing—his splitting, splintering, repeating, fracturing and reassembling elements into new and impossible compositions," Coen writes. Featuring work spanning more than 60 years, the book includes selections from some of Friedlander’s most celebrated series, including The American Monument, America by Car, The Little Screens and others, arranged to draw connections between form and composition rather than subject. In an afterword, renowned actor Frances McDormand describes the bond between the two artists: "they both capture and fill frames with sometimes simple and other times chaotically elaborate images that cause us all to wonder." Lee Friedlander (born 1934) began photographing in 1948. Among his more than 50 monographs are Signs, Sticks and Stones, Self-Portrait, Letters from the People, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan and At Work. His work was included in the influential 1967 exhibition New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by John Szarkowski. Joel Coen (born 1954) is an American filmmaker who, with his younger brother Ethan, has directed films such as Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and Hail Caesar.
"Ajo, Arizona" (1995) is reproduced from 'Lee Friedlander Framed by Joel Coen.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times: Arts
Arthur Lubow
The witty and carefully crafted movies that Coen has written and directed display a similar flair for revealing the mystery in what might seem at first glance to be ordinary and banal.
Guardian
Sean O'Hagan
The book...is intriguing as much for what it says about Coen’s offbeat vision as Friedlander’s singular way of seeing.
New York Magazine: Vulture
Jesse Fox
Coen then does a masterful job sequencing the images, giving the flipping of pages a cinematic quality reminiscent of one of his films.
New York Magazine: Vulture
Jesse Fox
Coen then does a masterful job sequencing the images, giving the flipping of pages a cinematic quality reminiscent of one of his films.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
“New York City” (1969) is reproduced from Lee Friedlander Framed by Joel Coen, in which the acclaimed filmmaker applies his renowned editing skills and sense of play to the selection of 70 personally intriguing photographs by the legendary American photographer of the social landscape. "I found it a daunting task to choose just a few images from Lee Friedlander’s vast career," Coen writes. "Where to start? As a picture maker myself I was drawn more to his beautifully strange sense of composition than to any specific subject. And as a filmmaker, I liked the idea of creating a sequence that would highlight Lee’s unusual approach to framing—his splitting, splintering, repeating, fracturing and reassembling elements into new and impossible compositions. I was also interested in the fact that Lee is a jazz enthusiast, and that he began his career by making pictures of musicians. If all art aspires to the condition of music, then Lee is a jazzman with a camera, and the sound he gets out of his instrument is unlike anything ever played before." continue to blog
“New York City” (1969) is reproduced from Lee Friedlander Framed by Joel Coen, in which the acclaimed filmmaker applies his renowned editing skills and sense of play to the selection of 70 personally intriguing photographs by the legendary American photographer of the social landscape. "I found it a daunting task to choose just a few images from Lee Friedlander’s vast career," Coen writes. "Where to start? As a picture maker myself I was drawn more to his beautifully strange sense of composition than to any specific subject. And as a filmmaker, I liked the idea of creating a sequence that would highlight Lee’s unusual approach to framing—his splitting, splintering, repeating, fracturing and reassembling elements into new and impossible compositions. I was also interested in the fact that Lee is a jazz enthusiast, and that he began his career by making pictures of musicians. If all art aspires to the condition of music, then Lee is a jazzman with a camera, and the sound he gets out of his instrument is unlike anything ever played before." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.75 x 12.75 in. / 136 pgs / 70 tritone. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $94 GBP £58.00 ISBN: 9781881337362 PUBLISHER: Fraenkel Gallery AVAILABLE: 6/13/2023 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Fraenkel Gallery. Introduction by Joel Coen. Afterword by Frances McDormand.
"I found it a daunting task to choose just a few images from Lee Friedlander's vast career. Where to start...?" –Joel Coen
In his selection of 70 photographs by Lee Friedlander, acclaimed filmmaker Joel Coen focuses on Friedlander’s beautifully strange sense of composition, in which images are off kilter and visually dense, bisected and carved by stop signs and utility poles, store windows and reflections, car doors and windshields or shadows and trees. "As a filmmaker, I liked the idea of creating a sequence that would highlight Lee’s unusual approach to framing—his splitting, splintering, repeating, fracturing and reassembling elements into new and impossible compositions," Coen writes. Featuring work spanning more than 60 years, the book includes selections from some of Friedlander’s most celebrated series, including The American Monument, America by Car, The Little Screens and others, arranged to draw connections between form and composition rather than subject. In an afterword, renowned actor Frances McDormand describes the bond between the two artists: "they both capture and fill frames with sometimes simple and other times chaotically elaborate images that cause us all to wonder."
Lee Friedlander (born 1934) began photographing in 1948. Among his more than 50 monographs are Signs, Sticks and Stones, Self-Portrait, Letters from the People, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan and At Work. His work was included in the influential 1967 exhibition New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by John Szarkowski.
Joel Coen (born 1954) is an American filmmaker who, with his younger brother Ethan, has directed films such as Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and Hail Caesar.
