Evidence.

SULTAN, Larry and Mike Mandel.

$2,200.00

Item Number: 102358

Greenbrae, California: Clatworthy Colorvues, 1977.

First edition of this groundbreaking collection of 59 evidentiary photographs selected from diverse archives, documenting crime scenes, scientific experiments, industrial tests, and natural disasters. Slim oblong quarto, original dark blue cloth gilt. Signed by both authors on the title page, “Mike Mandel 6-21-77” and by Larry Sultan. Afterword by Robert F. Forth. In fine condition.

With the advent of “art photography” in the 1960s and 70s came a somewhat pretentious insistence by the artistic community that only “artists” could create valuable photographs. When Evidence appeared, it shifted our appreciation of the photograph toward something more than a purely artistic expression, and forever designated “found images” and “candid shots” as acceptable in the photographic arts. In the afterword to this collection, art professor Robert Forth warns (tongue in cheek) that to interpret evidence correctly, we must “underpin and surround the evident with more circumstantial materials,” that archeology, for example, “is nothing more than sociology without live people around to fill in the gaps between the remains.” Roth 101, Parr & Badger; Photobook.