O
Luis Alberto Rodriguez
Loose Joints
English
Hardcover
156 pages
270 x 320 mm
2023
ISBN 9781912719419
In O, acclaimed Dominican-American artist Luis Alberto Rodriguez strips down his choreographed, embodied approach to photography through a series that explores the free-fall of life, the construction of identity, and their connections with spiritual destiny. Influenced by French mystic thinker Simone Weil, Rodriguez draws a line between his stripped-down portraits and Weil’s life’s work, in search of purity and the relationship between suffering and transcendence. The title of the book – the letter O – speaks to this transcendence – between a noise, a gasp, an exhale, a cycle, all sounds, an open symbol, a zero, a reset.
Using a cast of different bodies, ages, backgrounds and identities, Rodriguez sculpts a series of nudes oscillating between power and a loss of control. Rodriguez challenges his subjects to let go: bodies contort and collapse while returning to poise, lifting to grace, and reaching into purity. How much control do we have over the direction we are headed? How soft is the landing?
Rodriguez frames his striking nudes in dialogue with images of tasseography – the practice of divination through coffee-cup reading that runs through Rodriguez’s Dominican heritage – to spiritually engage with the force and beauty of those who appear, and disappear, before his camera. O envokes the volatility of our current moment, our states of self-preservation, and the future that is yet to come.
(source: https://loosejoints.biz/products/o)
About the Artist
Luis Alberto Rodriguez is an American-Dominican artist. After initially undertaking a career in dance, Rodriguez became a photographer. His work has awarded him the Prix de Public, the American Vintage prize at 32nd Hyeres Festival of Fashion and Photography in 2017 and a feature in the Red Hook Labs New Artists in 2018.
luisalbertorodriguez.com
(source: https://www.luisalbertorodriguez.com/)
About the Publisher
Loose Joints is an award-winning independent publishing house based in London, UK and Marseille, France, founded by Sarah Piegay Espenon and Lewis Chaplin in 2014. They collaborate with leading and emerging artists on contemporary approaches to photography in book form. Loose Joints circulates new visual perspectives through a dedicated list seeking to elevate underrepresented voices in photographic discourse.
loosejoints.biz
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