Summer Nights, Walking
Reviewed by Richard Gordon, published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009
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Photographs by Robert Adams.
Aperture/Yale University Art Galler, New York, 2009. Hardbound. 84 pp., 70 tritone illustrations, 8-3/4x8-1/2".
Summer Nights, Walking Photographs by Robert Adams. Published by Aperture/Yale University Art Galler, 2009.
In the past few years some of Robert Adams's seminal and hard to find (or very expensive) early books have been reprinted. The latest effort is an expanded version of Summer Nights, now re-titled,
Summer Nights, Walking. The new book is beautifully printed and designed with subtle understatement to match that of Adams's style.
In John Szarkowski's 1974 introduction to Adams's only necessary book, The New West, he notes that Adams's pictures avoid theatricality and "expressivo effects." True enough for Adams's work in daylight, but not so much the case for the night work. With the exception of The New West, all of his generally available books serve as collections of pictures, intelligently and carefully presented, but never quite fully realized as books. Like much of the history of the photo book, they serve the useful purpose of collection and catalogue, leading the viewer to original work as well as their reference function.
Adams's best photographs deserve and reward serious attention. I leave to the viewer the pleasurable, rewarding task of selection.
—Richard Gordon
Richard Gordon is a photographer who lives in California. His photographs and artist's books are in museum and library special collections from sea to shining see. Four prints from his recently completed book project, American Surveillance, will be on display, along with the work of five photographers, in "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera" which opens at the Tate Modern in late May 2009 and at SFMOMA in October 2009.
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