MARC JOSEPH: NEW AND USED

January 23—March 7, 2006

Marc Joseph, Anderson/Melville, Color photograph, Dimensions variable, 2005

The Cooley Gallery is proud to present the U.S. debut of New York photographer Marc Joseph's stunning body of large scale color photographs taken during the artist's three year exploration of independently owned book and record stores across the United States. New and Used is a chronicle, a reader, a memento, an archive — and a visual portrait of objects, spaces and narratives in the midst of economic and social change. The exhibition is curated by Cooley Gallery director Stephanie Snyder together with the artist.

A 190-page monograph and exhibition catalog -- New and Used -- has been published by Steidl. In New and Used Joseph and co-editor Damon Krukowski have assembled a collection of short fiction, prose, poems and personal essays by writers and musicians and set them among Joseph's photographs. Authors include: Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, novelists Jonathan Lethem and Lydia Davis, critic and curator Bob Nickas, poets Eileen Myles, Nick Tosches, Stephen Elliot, and exhibition curator Stephanie Snyder, among others. New and Used is available through Amazon.com and Reading Frenzy, Portland, Oregon.

Growing up in Ohio in the 1970s, photographer Marc Joseph was first exposed to art, writing and music in the eccentric smaller book and record shops of downtown Cleveland. Most Saturday afternoons were spent combing through the stacks in anticipation of a major future purchase, like his first, London Calling; by The Clash; or studying certain talismanic book covers like George Orwell's "Animal Farm" or Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." This was the beginning of Joseph's permanent fascination with books and records: both as public artworks and as formative private experiences. New and Used is a collection of richly detailed color photographs of hardcovers, paperbacks, LPs, CDs and cassettes, either shelved, piled, boxed and stacked in their natural environments -- independent book and record shops -- or individually silhouetted like artifacts pinned into shadow boxes.


ARTIST STATEMENT
Before spending time in galleries, museums, or live concert venues, books and records served as my primary sources of exposure to visual art, writing, and music - culture that would entirely shape my path. The compulsive draw into book and record stores defined my youth, and indeed, I can scarcely pass by one today without entering. The processes of consideration, selection, determination, and possession of books and records are profoundly personal interactions with art.

New and Used is a group of photographs of books and records (LP, CD, and cassette formats) as they presently exist, and of some of the independently owned and operated stores in the United States where they are sold. These pictures have been made as contemporary monuments to books and records as works of art, as physical forms of writing and (recorded) music, and to survey the unlimited potential for discovery in and around them.

Exerting profound influence, books and records communicate a universe of ideas ranging from broad popular issues, to specialized, esoteric realms of study and practice. The knowledge and experiences they convey and the art used to convey them become a part of their owners, and in turn, can be shared with others. Books and records are both public and private. The technological alteration of books and records is a commercially driven, constantly evolving process. Digital book, MP3, and Podcast technologies have radically transformed our relations with written works and audio recordings, converting their traditional physical forms to digital media.

Contextually, these works are now sometimes broadly re categorized as "content". Paradoxically, the rise of digital media has increased consumer access to books and records via the Internet, and today's market-cycle assures a constant stream of material, in greater variety and quantity than ever before. The long-term effects of these developments are not yet clear. Some book and record stores remain independently owned. When operated by dedicated individuals and small partnerships, their unique inventories and environments reflect a studied (at times, emphatic) curatorial approach to the trade. Such merchants, their goods, and their establishments, are important conduits of culture.
-- Marc Joseph