A photographic meditation on the elasticity of pandemic time.
The latest body of work from American photographer Sandra Cattaneo Adorno (born 1954) offers a meditation on perception: how we experience time, memory, connection and the boundaries between reality and illusion. "Reflection, refractions and distortions abound, transforming the external world into a metaphor of the mind," Cattaneo Adorno explains. Inspired by the memory of brightly colored, overlapping metal plates on a printing press, known as scarti (scraps), Cattaneo Adorno revisited her archives and began layering images during the pandemic. Scarti di Tempo can mean either "time discrepancy" or "lag time," serving as a metaphor for how time--like waves of light or sound--can expand or contract. In much the same way, these photographs occasionally dissolve into abstraction while remaining tethered to reality. The book also contains a QR code that links to a score composed by the artist's husband, which provides an opportunity to experience the harmony of image and sound.
A pandemic logbook in words and images, with gorgeous Cape Cod panoramas and poetical meditations.
"Far from the vibrant urban worlds where I've often photographed, I followed the subtle movements of time and tide, wind and water. Meanwhile, Rebecca photographed the waves of light as they washed through our house of many windows--and wrote spare text pieces to try to emotionally navigate this unsettling time, when so many we know have been caught in its undertow." -Alex Webb, May 2021 Inspired by Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves, this collaborative project brings together the work of creative partners Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb. This intimate collection serves as a pandemic logbook in words and images, created while the couple was largely sequestered on Cape Cod from March 2020 through May 2021. Rebecca provides original, handwritten poetry that punctuates her lyrical photographs and Alex's panoramic seascapes. Their images serve as poignant meditations on what it means to be both deeply connected to the world around us and profoundly isolated from much that we hold dear.
Alex Webb (born 1952) has published more than 15 photography books, including the survey The Suffering of Light. His most recent books include La Calle: Photographs from Mexico and the collaboration Brooklyn: The City Within, with Rebecca Norris Webb.
Originally a poet, Rebecca Norris Webb (born 1956) often interweaves her text and photographs in her nine books, most notably with her monograph, My Dakota. Her most recent book, Night Calls, was published by Radius Books in 2020.
Slant Rhymes is a conversation between two world renowned photographers, Magnum photographer Alex Webb and poet and photographer Rebecca Norris Webb, a married creative couple who have authored 18 books.
Selected from photographs taken during the Webbs' nearly 30-year friendship and later marriage and creative partnership, this group of 80 photographs are paired-one of Alex's, one of Rebecca's-to create a series of visual rhymes that talk to one another-often at a «slant» and in intriguing and revealing ways.
«Sometimes we find our photographic slant rhymes share a similar palette or tone or geometry,» writes Alex Webb in the introduction to the book. «Other times, our paired photographs strike a similar note-often a penchant for surreal or surprising or enigmatic moments-although often in two different keys».
Made in some 15 countries, these photographs-most of which have never before been published-are interwoven with short text pieces written by the Webbs while they were working together and apart. Taken together, the work forms a kind unfinished love poem, told at a slant.
