William A. Ewing

Our fast-changing world seen through the lenses of 140 leading contemporary photographers around the globe. With close to 500 images, many previously unpublished, this landmark publication takes stock of the material and spiritual cultures that make up ‘civilization’. Ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from our great collective achievements to our ruinous collective failings, Civilization: The Way We Live Now explores the complexity of contemporary civilization through the rich, nuanced language of photography. Featuring images by some 140 photographers – from Reiner Riedler’s families at leisure parks, Raimond Wouda’s high schools, Wang Qingsong’s Work, Work, Work and Cindy Sherman’s Society Portraits, to Lauren Greenfield’s displays of ostentatious wealth, Edward Burtynsky’s oil fields, Pablo Lopez Luz’s views on a sprawling contemporary megalopolis, Thomas Struth’s images of high technology, Xing Danwen’s electronic wastelands and Taryn Simon’s Contraband, Civilization draws together the threads of humankind’s ever-changing, frenetic, collective life across the globe. Visually epic, Civilization is presented through eight thematic chapters, each featuring powerful imagery and accompanied by provocative essays, quotes and concise statements by the artists themselves.

A compact survey of photographs by Edward Steichen, whose career spanned well over half a century. Edward Steichen had the rare ability to turn his talents to almost all genres of photography with resounding success. Art and industry, fashion and beauty, celebrity portraits, landscapes and cityscapes, nudes and dancers – his legacy remains omnipresent. It was Steichen’s curious and inventive mind that made this diversity possible, as he ignored established dogma to carve out his own unique path. This book presents the best of his work from a career that spanned well over half a century. Featuring a revised introduction and updated to include a selection of Steichen’s flora-related images, it offers an opportunity to present the photographer’s work from a thoroughly contemporary perspective.

A thought-provoking overview of contemporary bird photography, featuring the work of more than 50 internationally recognized photographers in an enthralling odyssey that both captures the splendour of birds and highlights the complex relationship between humans and animals Photographs of birds feature rarely in the early decades of photography: birds were too fast to be captured in flight, and could not be depicted in colour, issues that took many years to rectify. Today, however, with superb technical means at their disposal, photographers have taken to the subject with great enthusiasm, inspired by our ever-increasing understanding and appreciation of avian complexity. Aviary features the work of more than fifty internationally recognized photographers who explore our relationship with birds, questioning how we observe them and respond to their presence – and vice versa. Taking an eclectic curatorial approach, Danaé Panchaud and William A. Ewing weave together photography from the diverse fields of art, documentary, fashion, portraiture, ornithology and wildlife photography, proposing intriguing new dialogues and visual theatre between these different modes of photographic expression. Rather than being organized by field of study or species, Aviary surveys the symbiotic relationship between animals and humans through six thematic chapters imagined as ‘acts’ in a theatrical pageant. Both a visual celebration of the wonders of nature and a stark reminder of its fragility, Aviary presents a compelling portrait of our relationship with birds through the work of contemporary photographers such as Leila Jeffreys, Sarah Moon, Roger Ballen, Charles Fréger, Vik Muniz, Tim Flach, Viviane Sassen, Robert Clark and Nadav Kander, among many others.

Vivid, bold, spectacular and unexpected: a definitive overview of one of contemporary photography’s most innovative fields, showcasing flower imagery by more than 120 of the world’s leading practitioners. There has never been a period in photography’s long history – no school, no movement – when flowers have not been a central focus, whether in the form of the classic still life, the botanical study, incorporated into portraiture and studies of the human body, documented in street photography, or used subversively in surrealist collage and montage. Today, flower photography remains in full bloom, with photographers the world over depicting flowers and floral motifs in novel ways. Featuring works by more than 120 photographers, Flora Photographica links the very best of flower photography from the past thirty years with its predecessors – canonical floral studies from the realms of photography, botanical illustration, drawing and painting that have marked the collective imagination for centuries, if not millennia. Works by contemporary photographers such as Cindy Sherman, Thomas Ruff, Vik Muniz, Valérie Belin, Viviane Sassen, and Martin Schoeller appear across nine thematic chapters, complemented by two in-depth essays by curators William A. Ewing and Danaé Panchaud exploring the relationship between contemporary works and the rich traditions of floral art and photography.

A construction site offered the scenario for a big photographic project created by Carlo Valsecchi, the fruit of which is presented in the pages of this volume. The gaze of Carlo Valsecchi (Brescia, 1965) is educated by a solid artistic preparation: over the course of many years he’s been using photography to investigate architecture and, in a wider sense, the landscape, both natural and artificial. Valsecchi interprets these places by offering us a vision that transcends the space and the contingent moment: his images invite us to discover a timeless reality, which perhaps will eventually come: posterius. As William Ewing points out in his long afterword, Valsecchi gives us images of ethereal, abstract spaces that border on the surreal, managing to bring out the mystery inherent in them. Text in English and Italian.

We hurtle together into the future at ever-increasing speed – or so it seems to the collective psyche. Every day and every hour, human civilization expands, evolves and mutates. While we frequently lapse into celebrating the individual at the expense of the group, in science and art, at work and at play, at home and in transit, we increasingly live the collective life. Civilization shows how contemporary photography, notably art photography, is fascinated by, and attempts to decode and communicate, the way we live today. This landmark publication is accompanied by an internationally touring exhibition produced by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography – a global cultural event for a global subject. Civilization is presented through eight thematic chapters, each led by breathtaking imagery and accompanied by essays, quotes, commentaries and captions to provide a deeper understanding of its theme. Visually epic and ambitiously popular in approach, it will reach out beyond the boundaries of the photography world to connect with audiences worldwide.

The ultimate collection of William Wegman's Weimaraner photographs, in an accessibly priced format, with over 250 brilliant and witty images from across five decades.

Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955) is one of a generation of photographers, including Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth, who seek to portray the visible outcomes of a globalized economy and humankind’s impact upon environments around the world. He has achieved global recognition with his large-scale photographs and project-based monographs, such as Quarries , Oil and Water , all of which have resulted in popular touring exhibitions and, in the case of Water , a feature-length documentary film entitled Watermark . However, while Burtynsky’s global standing is without question, no comprehensive retrospective of his career to date exists. Edited and curated by William A. Ewing, Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements provides an overview of Burtynsky’s work across four decades, including both iconic images and previously unpublished photographs. It dissolves previous project-based definitions to set out Burtynsky’s oeuvre as five free-flowing sections that provide a sense of both his visual language and his exploration of the dilemmas at the heart of our globalized world. Each of the five sections is interleaved with a selection of texts from previous publications and articles on Burtynsky that work in concert with the photographs to provide a complete understanding of Burtynsky’s view of the world. With an introduction by William A. Ewing and an essay by Joshua Schuster, this book provides both an entirely new way of seeing Burtynsky’s work for those who already follow his career and an accessible introduction for those encountering his photographs for the first time

Landmark is a defining survey of contemporary landscape photography. It features more than 230 images by over 100 leading photographers of today, all of whom present an individual viewpoint about a shared concern for our changing landscape and environment. The book is organized around ten themes and includes work by such distinguished practitioners as Edward Burtynsky, Stéphane Couturier, Mitch Epstein and Sally Mann. From restful, bucolic images capturing the last vestiges of ‘nature’, through shocking depictions of a sullied Earth, scarred and abused, to surreal and artificial landscapes where the ‘natural’ landscape is a highly controlled one, the book provides a thought-provoking meditation on the meaning of landscape in today’s world. The well-known writer and curator William A. Ewing contributes introductory texts to each of the sections, as well as the preface and introduction. Landmark also features statements by the artists themselves.

A landmark publication for anyone interested in photography, and the art of portraiture in particular, this book is the first posthumous monograph of the American master, showcasing his iconic individual and group portraits as well as abstracts, landscapes and cityscapes. Arnold Newman (1918–2006) was one of the most productive, creative and successful portrait photographers of the twentieth century. For sixty-six years he applied himself to his art and craft and was amply rewarded by regular publication in the most influential magazines of the day, by major solo exhibitions, and by appearances in many of the world’s most prestigious photography collections. Three dynamic black-and-white plate sections, organized for maximum visual impact, feature over 160 photographs, including dozens never before seen in book form. Photographs of Newman’s famous subjects include Truman Capote, Marc Chagall, J. F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Gore Vidal, Andy Warhol, and many more. Packed with iconic images and never-before-seen gems, and complete with an illuminating preface by Todd Brandow and short biographies of Newman’s sitters written by Corinne Currat, this landmark publication pays homage to a true master of modern photography.