William Eggleston: The Democratic Forest

Info

Ten-volume set
1328 pages, 31.5 x 32 cm
Hardback, clothbound in slipcase
Published by Steidl, 2015

Words

"Following the publication of Chromes in 2011 and Los Alamos Revisited in 2012, the reassessment of Eggleston’s career continues with the publication of The Democratic Forest, his most ambitious project. This ten-volume set containing more than a thousand photographs is drawn from a body of twelve thousand pictures made by Eggleston in the 1980s."

—Available from Steidl

William Eggleston's Stranded in Canton

01

Image

—01. Photographs by William Eggleston.

Words

I was recommended William Eggleston’s film, Stranded in Canton, a while ago when discussing his work with a colleague, unbeknownst to me that on top of his influential body of photographs he had also produced this bizarre and innovative piece of video art. Shot using a black-and-white Sony Portapak unit with an infrared tube attached so he could record in dark places without lights, the outcome is part Southern Gothic circus sideshow and part hallucinatory cinéma-vérité documentation. In 2009, it was released as a book featuring 40 frame enlargements and other bonus materials, as well as a DVD copy of the remastered film. This volume, published by Twin Palms, is definitely one to check out, especially if you're interested in the fringes of 1970s American artistic expression or want to gain a deeper understanding of a highly influential career that is still going strong.

—Available from Photo-Eye Bookstore

William Eggleston: From Black and White to Colour

01

Image

—01. Untitled, ca. 1970.

Words

William Eggleston has one of the more idiosyncratic and oft-copied oeuvres in photography and this collection, released by Steidl in late 2014, does a great job of compiling his fantastically composed mundane subject matter. It also highlights his transition from black and white to colour – something which gave the latter a real push in terms of respectability as art. One of Eggleston’s contemporaries, artist Ed Ruscha, may have said it best when he stated, “…when you see a picture he’s taken, you’re stepping into some jagged kind of world that seems like Eggleston World.”

—Available from Dashwood Books
—Steidl