“Home is where the heart is”
“Home is where the hatred is”
The notion of Home is complicated. Today we are featuring some of our favorite books that examine our relationship to “home.” Longing to be back, the home we all share, finding a new home, returning home, dysfunctional homes, and love.
AMC² Issue 5: Notes From Home
By Timothy Prus & Ed Jones
London : Archive of Modern Conflict, 2012
TR179.5.A273 . N68 2014 (RARE)
The Archive of Modern Conflict is an archive that collects vernacular photography, originally related to images related to conflict and war but has broadened their scope to include all vernacular photographs. Their semi-regular journal will ask an artist or collective to mine the collection and present a certain theme. Issue 5 of AMC² coincided with a 2013 exhibition of real photo postcards chosen from the collection by Timothy Prus and Ed Jones. Each postcard is from a summer holiday and the English east coast, during the first half of the 20th century. The special edition, wrapped in a pink candy-striped bag mimics something that may have held a boardwalk treat. In addition to sending images of the travelers back home or images of where they are staying, each image in the book features the text written to their loved ones on the facing page. These notes hint at a longing for home, and also the regret of their absence from home during their retreat.
For images: Publishers website
100 New York Mysteries
By Aaron Krach
New York : Aaron Krach, 2012
TR179.5.K7334.N49 2012 (RARE)
“I moved to New York from Los Angeles and fell instantly in love with The City. I’d visited to Paris and Rome, Chicago and Miami, but New York was The City. And it felt like home. The city also looked and felt alive, offering mysterious bits of beautifulness everywhere I looked. In 2003, I started taking pictures of steam coming out of the streets and sidewalks. I was mildly obsessed. We didn’t have steam like this in L.A. so I set out to capture every permutation of it: seeping, spewing, erupting, leaking, blowing, and more. This book has no words. It’s a silent movie turned into a novel, a very personal story about something that is truly fantastic.” – Artist’s Website
For Images: https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/33083/
Pictures From Home
Larry Sultan
New York : Abrams, 1992
TR681.F28.S85 1992 (RARE)
An iconic photobook, Larry’ Sultan’s “Pictures From Home” captures Sultan’s visits to his parents’ home in Southern California throughout the 1980s. He shares these moments via color images from both his camera and stills from Super-8 home movies while text provides a kind of conversation for the viewer.
For Images: http://larrysultan.com/gallery/pictures-from-home/
Life Is Elsewhere
Sohrab Hura.
New Delhi, India : Self Published (Ugly Dog) ; 2015.
TR179.5.H873.L54 2014 (RARE)
Look It’s Getting Sunny Outside!
Sohrab Hura.
New Delhi, India : Self Published (Ugly Dog) ; 2018.
TR179.5 .H873.L66 2018 (RARE)
Making work about family is complicated, and in Sohrab Hura’s two books Life is elsewhere and Look It’s getting sunny outside!!!, he gives us a visceral look into his own. At face value, both books (which were published three years apart) might seem like a progression from darkness to light, a transitioning out of dysfunction, but upon closer inspection, we familiarize ourselves with Hura’s penchant for paradoxes.
Read more of Erika Morillo’s exploration of these books here: https://monstersandmadonnas.blog/2018/12/20/two-books-a-dog-a-sons-profound-longing/
Close To Home: An American Album
D.J. Waldie
Los Angeles : J. Paul Getty Museum, c. 2004.
TR592.5.C56 2004
Close to Home: An American Album” presents glimpses into everyday American life during the 1940-1960s through a collection of vernacular photography. Although the identity of those in the images is unknown, they are at the same time universal.
For Images: https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/close_to_home/
Monsters & Madonnas 