Berlin in the Time of the Wall: The Photographs of John Gossage
John Gossage
Loosestrife
English
Text by Gerry Badger.
Hardcover, in glassine wrapper.
Edition of 2000.
464 Pages
260 x 330 mm
2004
ISBN 0975312006
But the legacy of Berlin on the work of John Gossage went far deeper. Berlin, one might say, is the place where photography became both easy and difficult for him. Easy because there was such a rich vein of subject matter, history piled up in front of his eyes, one metaphorical layer upon another, like the different strata that can reveal so much to the archaeologist when a trench is cut through a site. But such strata, translated into the archaeologist’s sectional drawings, are notoriously difficult to read, and that, in a nutshell, was where the difficulty, the challenge lay for Gossage. He was faced with the task of evaluating the evidence, reading it, recording it, interpreting it, and fashioning it into a coherent ‘report’—both for himself and for his audience. Of course, as John Gossage is an artist, the ‘report’ may be oblique, poetic, metaphorical, subjective, and ambiguous. In short, it is a creative interpretation.” (Gerry Badger, Berlin in the Time of the Wall)
About the Artist
John Gossage was born in New York in 1946 and lives and works in Washington D.C. He studied with Lisette Model and Alexey Brodovitch in 1960-1961. His work is now represented in major public and private collections worldwide. Most of all, he is regarded as one of the finest American photobook-makers in view of his artist’s books and photographic publications. His first monograph, The Pond (1985), remains one of the most important photobooks. In 2002, John Gossage started his own publishing company, loosestrife editions, to create “books that challenge, provoke and inspire”.
(source: https://photopaper.world/portfolio-item/14-15-john-gossage/)
About the Publisher
Loosestrife Editions has published artists such as Anthony Hernandez, John Gossage and Michael Abrams.
loosestrifebooks.com
