Booth, Alvin. Corpus. Beyond the body. Introduction by Charlotte Cotton. Zürich, New York, Edition Stemmle (1999). 4°. [59] Bl. mit 85 Tafeln in Sepia. OPbd. mit illustr. OU.

Erste Ausgabe. – Mit eigenhändiger Widmung von A. Booth auf dem Vortitel. – „The warmth and diversity of the tonal range of Booth’s images hint at their relationship with photography of the nineteenth century. The soft, textural beauty of photography – the very quality that defined much early photographic practice – is central to this contemporary work. Photography’s role in intimate social life, which developed through the nineteenth century, is similarly called to mind. The ecstatic slaves of Booth’s images, bound and kneeling, have the sensibility of a Victorian melodrama. The miniature, secretive series of images entitled ‘Small Collectors’ contain the illicit ambience of pornographic daguerreotypes of the 1850s or French postcards of voluptuous femininity from later in the nineteenth century. The colours of these photographs create a nostalgic feel that heightens our sense of past events and sensibilities. These are the peek-a-boo spectacles of the fin de siecle. … These images, with their vocabulary drawn from photography’s history, are made contemporary by the vibrancy of the human forms. The dynamics of the studio performance are ever present in Booth’s photographs. The tactile qualities of skin and motion create the immediacy , the sense of the moment, that resonates through these vibrant photographs“ (C. Cotton). – Sehr gutes Exemplar.