EILEEN COWIN: PHOTOGRAPHS

Tokyo, Japan: Gallery Min, 1987. First Edition. First Printing.. Softcover. Fine/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Tokyo, Japan: Gallery Min, 1987. Softcover. Fine/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. Unpaginated. Landmark collection of photographs. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only by a Japanese gallery. The Exhibition Catalog is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Gallery Min: Oversize-volume format. Pictorial softcovers with white titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Eileen Cowin. The texts consist of brief quotations from a wide array of sources, from David Byrne to Daniel Boorstin to Gustave Flaubert. Essay, "Real Images of An Illusory World", by Mark Johnstone. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Tokyo, Japan to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is exemplary in every respect. Without DJ, as issued. Presents "Eileen Cowin: Photographs". Which amounts to a fragmentary photo-narrative/"docudrama" involving a couple and their family members, who include elders and children. Since there is no accompanying text, the images, which demand to be seen in the sequence the photographer presented them, can be said to be about a lot of things. Even the basic "storyline" is wide open to interpretation. The couple seem to be going about their daily life: They eat, date, have fun, go shopping, quarrel, make love. There is an illness in the family; there is an adulterous affair. Towards the end, the images take on an otherworldly, fantastic quality that departs from the realistic, documentary look of everything that came before it. Because each image is described technically at the bottom, we are constantly reminded that these are staged photographs. Eileen Cowin's point is akin to Jean Cocteau's famous one about art as proof: "I do not narrate the passing through mirrors; I show it, and in some manner, I prove it. The greatest power of a film - or a photograph - is to be indisputable with respect to the actions it determines and which are carried out before our eyes" (Jean Cocteau). By showing something, all photographs exist as proof, an "assertion of accuracy in the spirit of maximum vehemence" (Susan Sontag). Cowin quotes The Master himself: "All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry" (Gustave Flaubert). Every artist and photographer's worldview is, precisely, visual: Photography = Reality is visible. Whereas, in contrast, Philosophy = Reality is invisible. And the more staged the photograph, the more it paradoxically has the look and feel of reality, which fact enhances and does not negate the photographer's privileged position as both storyteller and truth-teller. An absolute "must-have" title for Eileen Cowin collectors. This title is a contemporary art photography classic. This is one of few copies of the Exhibition Catalog still available online and despite its imperfection (Publisher's flaw: slight rubbing and peeling on the black-dominant softcovers) is still in near-fine condition overall: Every single internal page is clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: This is an Import title, always difficult and now nearly impossible to obtain from Japan. Copies available online have even more serious flaws or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the most brilliant American photographers of our time. A fine copy. . ISBN 4906265154.