A by Greg Halpern

My review of Greg Halpern's A (J&L Books, 2011) is now on the Photo-eye site. I've been a fan of Greg's work for a number of years, so it is great to see another great book.

These days America's Rust Belt seems to be growing – the long collapsed centers of American industry have metastasized and are merging with the larger landscape of economic woes plaguing the United States. Most often evoked by politicians to decry the stagnant state of the American economy or to celebrate past greatness, it is a landscape often heralded, but rarely visited or known. On the surface, Greg Halpern's new book A is a journey through numerous Rust Belt cities (Detroit, his home town of Buffalo, Baltimore and others), but it is also a metaphoric journey through the American landscape and an examination of its hopes and failures. As we navigate this landscape, solitary figures, dilapidated homes and skittish, frenzied animals all blend to evoke a state of stubborn survival, resilience and beauty.

Read the rest here.

UPDATE: The book signing at ICP is on January 27th.

Traces by Ian Teh

My review of Ian Teh's Traces (Deep Sleep Editions, 2011) is now on Photo-eye.

Over the past twenty years, large swaths of China's landscape have been transformed and denuded of their natural resources in an effort to propel the country into the 21st century. The skyscrapers of Shanghai or Beijing superficially display progress, but powerful political forces and willful ignorance often hide the environmental cost of such rapid development. This is not unique to China. All countries and their citizens prefer to remain ignorant of, or resigned to, the demands and toll we place on the earth in order to live the lives we live. Ian Teh's Traces (Dark Clouds) is really two bodies of overlapping work that examine the rapidly industrialized landscapes of China's remote provinces, as well as their human costs. Teh's unique approach to the subject not only elevates the work above much recent work on China, but also offers a disturbing and powerful vision of China's ongoing transformation.

Read the rest here.