A visual conundrum of incalculable mystery. —Martin Parr, The Photobook: A History
In 1977, photographers Larry Sultan (1946–2009) and Mike Mandel (born 1950) published a book that would radically transform both photography and the photobook canon—a book described by Martin Parr, in The Photobook: A History, as "one of the most beautiful, dense and puzzling photobooks in existence, an endless visual box of tricks." Sultan and Mandel sifted through thousands of photographs in the files of the Bechtel Corporation, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the US Department of the Interior, Stanford Research Institute and a hundred other corporations, American government agencies and educational, medical and technical institutions. They were looking for photographs that were made and used as transparent documents and purely objective instruments—as evidence, in short.
Selecting 59 of the best, they published these images with the care you would expect to find in a high-quality art photography book, issuing them in 1977 in a simple, limited-edition volume titled Evidence.
Long established as a photobook classic and a seminal example of conceptual photography, Evidence was reissued as a facsimile edition in 2004 by D.A.P. with a new spread of images and a group of black-and-white illustrations selected by the artists from an archive of photographs that were not included in the original book, plus a commissioned essay by Sandra Phillips. Today both this reissue and the original 1977 publication are exceptionally rare and command high prices.
D.A.P. now reprints the 2004 edition of Evidence, making available to a general readership a truly pioneering and canonical photobook.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Larry Sultan & Mike Mandel: Evidence.'
We are very proud to have published the 2004 edition of Evidence, the seminal conceptual photobook first published by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel in 1977. So it's wonderful to see that Source Photographic Review has named the book one of the most important photobooks of all time - second only to Robert Frank: The Americans. Our reprint of the coveted 2004 edition will be available in April, 2017. continue to blog
In 1977—long before the internet, back when you still had to go places to look at things—recent art school graduates Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan traveled up and down the California coast and beyond to collect previously archived and generally long-forgotten evidentiary photographs from the vaults of such unsexy-seeming entities as: the Berkeley Fire Department, Jet Propulsion Laboratories and the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles, among others. A selection of the most enigmatically fascinating were collected in the now-seminal artist's book, Evidence. Featured image is reproduced from the new printing of our 2004 expanded facsimile edition. If you're in New York for the 2017 AIPAD Photography Show, please join us at 4PM, when Mandel will speak and sign in the publications section. continue to blog
Join us Thursday – Sunday at the AIPAD Photography Show, Pier 94, New York, where we will present new, classic and rare photography books at BOOTH 95 and a selection of STEIDL books at BOOTH 93. Come early for rare copies of Mike Mandel: Good 70s and a variety of monographs by Lee Friedlander, who will be speaking at the fair on Saturday. Signings - with Mark Peterson, Anthony Hernandez, Mike Mandel, Bruce Davidson, David Freund, Mitch Epstein, Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball, Joel Sternfeld and Frank Gohlke, Linda Foard Roberts and Peter Angelo Simon - are listed below. Vernissage is 5-9 PM, Wednesday, March 29.
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 9 in. / 92 pgs / 25 b&w / 61 duotone. LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $54 ISBN: 9781942884149 PUBLISHER: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers AVAILABLE: 4/25/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WRLD Export via T&H
Published by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers. Text by Sandra Phillips, Robert Forth.
A visual conundrum of incalculable mystery. —Martin Parr, The Photobook: A History
In 1977, photographers Larry Sultan (1946–2009) and Mike Mandel (born 1950) published a book that would radically transform both photography and the photobook canon—a book described by Martin Parr, in The Photobook: A History, as "one of the most beautiful, dense and puzzling photobooks in existence, an endless visual box of tricks." Sultan and Mandel sifted through thousands of photographs in the files of the Bechtel Corporation, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the US Department of the Interior, Stanford Research Institute and a hundred other corporations, American government agencies and educational, medical and technical institutions. They were looking for photographs that were made and used as transparent documents and purely objective instruments—as evidence, in short.
Selecting 59 of the best, they published these images with the care you would expect to find in a high-quality art photography book, issuing them in 1977 in a simple, limited-edition volume titled Evidence.
Long established as a photobook classic and a seminal example of conceptual photography, Evidence was reissued as a facsimile edition in 2004 by D.A.P. with a new spread of images and a group of black-and-white illustrations selected by the artists from an archive of photographs that were not included in the original book, plus a commissioned essay by Sandra Phillips. Today both this reissue and the original 1977 publication are exceptionally rare and command high prices.
D.A.P. now reprints the 2004 edition of Evidence, making available to a general readership a truly pioneering and canonical photobook.
