By Conor Risch
André Kertész
By André Kertész
W.W. Norton & Company, July 2008
Hardcover, 72 pages, 71 black and white photographs
$24.95
As Robert Gurbo notes in his brief preface to André Kertétz’s
On
Reading, this new edition of the book that was originally
published in 1971 has been released “as we face the disturbing
prospect of digital and online books overtaking and possibly
eliminating printed media.” Although some would argue that digital
media has already cast print aside, it is hard to imagine the act
of picking up a book or magazine or newspaper will drift into
obsolescence anytime soon.
Made between 1915 and 1970, the images in
On Reading study
the complex and varied relationship we have with the printed word,
a relationship Kertész no doubt personally developed at a young age
as the son of a bookstore owner. In Kertész’s collection we see,
among others, an actor backstage taking a break with a book, a
woman reading in her apartment window, a young boy sprawled among a
pile of newspaper pages enjoying comic strips and an ice cream, a
moneyed man reading in a vast personal library, and a mustachioed
Parisian studying the front page of a newspaper with a quite
serious look on his face.
In most of the photographs, Ketész seems to have captured his
subjects without their knowledge. Photographs taken from long
distances, including several images of people reading on Greenwich
Village rooftops that were shot from above, evoke the intimacy and
absorption that characterize the act of reading. Even in looking at
the up-close photographs we imagine the subjects being so absorbed
in their books or letters or newspapers that they probably did not
notice the click of Kertész’s camera.
Gurbo, who is the curator of Kertész’s estate, is correct to
suggest that the timing of this new addition of
On Reading
is a bit ironical, a feeling perhaps strengthened by the
decades-old black and white images that imply the methods of
reading shown in these pages are strictly of the past. But
histories generally fall into two categories: those that allow us
to remember what we once did, and those that enrich our
understanding of what we continue to do. Clearly
On Reading
is the latter, and in looking at these images and relating them to
the many ways we see people around us reading in present day, the
irony may not be so much in the timing of the book’s reissue, but
in the idea that we are so collectively concerned about the Kindle
replacing the bound book, or the PDA or computer killing off the
newspaper or magazine.
On Reading
Aug 25, 2008
By By Conor Risch
By André Kertész
W.W. Norton & Company, July 2008
Hardcover, 72 pages, 71 black and white photographs
$24.95
As Robert Gurbo notes in his brief preface to André Kertétz’s
On Reading, this new edition of the book that was originally published in 1971 has been released “as we face the disturbing prospect of digital and online books overtaking and possibly eliminating printed media.” Although some would argue that digital media has already cast print aside, it is hard to imagine the act of picking up a book or magazine or newspaper will drift into obsolescence anytime soon.
Made between 1915 and 1970, the images in
On Reading study the complex and varied relationship we have with the printed word, a relationship Kertész no doubt personally developed at a young age as the son of a bookstore owner. In Kertész’s collection we see, among others, an actor backstage taking a break with a book, a woman reading in her apartment window, a young boy sprawled among a pile of newspaper pages enjoying comic strips and an ice cream, a moneyed man reading in a vast personal library, and a mustachioed Parisian studying the front page of a newspaper with a quite serious look on his face.
In most of the photographs, Ketész seems to have captured his subjects without their knowledge. Photographs taken from long distances, including several images of people reading on Greenwich Village rooftops that were shot from above, evoke the intimacy and absorption that characterize the act of reading. Even in looking at the up-close photographs we imagine the subjects being so absorbed in their books or letters or newspapers that they probably did not notice the click of Kertész’s camera.
Gurbo, who is the curator of Kertész’s estate, is correct to suggest that the timing of this new addition of
On Reading is a bit ironical, a feeling perhaps strengthened by the decades-old black and white images that imply the methods of reading shown in these pages are strictly of the past. But histories generally fall into two categories: those that allow us to remember what we once did, and those that enrich our understanding of what we continue to do. Clearly
On Reading is the latter, and in looking at these images and relating them to the many ways we see people around us reading in present day, the irony may not be so much in the timing of the book’s reissue, but in the idea that we are so collectively concerned about the Kindle replacing the bound book, or the PDA or computer killing off the newspaper or magazine.
