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Ralph Gibson's Best Publication - Which One?


35mmdelux

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"Deus Ex Machina" is probably the best single Gibson book out there. It's not really

great quality printing, but it does contain almost all (if not all) of the

images from almost all of his earlier works, many of which are small, older volumes

printed in limited numbers, and are generally very hard to find these days (i.e. the

Black Trilogy). "Deus Ex Machina" also contains a good number of images from

limited

edition portfolios and other things that were not widely released otherwise. It's really

his whole fine art career until about 2001 or so when it was printed. As I said earlier,

it may not be the best made book you'll own, but if you're only going to have one

Ralph Gibson book, this should be it. It would also make a very nice springboard into

perhaps collecting his other works

singly.

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I'd second Andrews take. I've got 7 Gibson books. My favorite is APROPOS DE MARY JANE because it was a signed gift from the photographer. Depending on what you like, most of his books are worth owning. Many are of nudes, there are the books on France...and now guitars and books. But Deus Ex Machina does, as Andrew explains have it all. A great overview of Gibsons work if you want to own 1 book.
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This may be a tough one to find. I bought a copy of 'Deux Ex Machina' that had been remaindered at Border's Books for about $7 USD a few years back. I remember one of the best Leica photographers I knew back in the 70s looking at some pictures by Gibson: "Look at this art school s***' he said. Gibson still gets published occasionally and hopefully he's making a living. Seems like he did a Leica add a while back. Like many 'creative' people opinions about him and his work vary. Good luck.
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The Somnambulist is good. My only Gibson book is Deja-Vu (1973). DEM is good if you want to see a variety of his pictures, but if you want a Gibson BOOK, then you should get one of the books that is true to the theme and vision that that particular book is about. His best work is about more than just individual photos. The pairings and total sequencing of Deja-Vu is evocative; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
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I agree with the other posts that DEM gives a very good overview of Gibson's work up to about 2001. Light Years is also excellent, but Overtones is my favorite -- today, at least. Overtones is a presentation of diptychs, where he has drawn on about 40-50 images published previously. Gibson is a master of imagery, especially when he uses the book as a medium of presentation.

 

David

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> strange - his stuff doesn't look like rangefinder style to me...

 

you are sounding like a broken-record Peter A., and one where the vinyl is getting rather thin. I think Ralph Gibson's style exemplifies what a Leica rangefinder-camera contributes to a styling and method of image-capture.

 

or so, that is what Ralph says incessantly about his work.

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I like DEJA-VU~{#,~}the book is large (21x30cm), with large photographs.

Deux Ex Machina contains Deja-vu, the pictures are smaller. Overtones is interesting, Ralph Gibson arranged two pictures of different subject matter side by side on each page to produce a combined effect-- diptych effect. Actually Ralph Gibson had practiced

diptych technique in his other album, for instance DEJA-VUE, instead

of two pictures on one page, he put two pictures on two opposing pages to form a diptych spread.

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<i>you are sounding like a broken-record Peter A., and one where the vinyl is getting rather

thin. I think Ralph Gibson's style exemplifies what a Leica rangefinder-camera contributes to

a styling and method of image-capture.</i><br><br>Actually, I think Peter has a point.

Gibson is well known for his use of a Leica M and 50mm focal length but his very precise and

rather starkly graphical compositions are not something many would immediately associate

with 'rangefinder' photography. If anything, Gibson's work proves that old chestnut about the

tool being secondary to the vision.

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I disagree (no surprise), and will also have to trust Ralph Gibson when he champions using a Leica and a fast-lens. it isn't a matter of dissecting an image to see if it fits some arbitrary 'rangefinder style' classification .. it's what can be done with a light, small, short-latency, fast camera of any type.

 

Ralph Gibson is a master of cropping and post-processing. I also think he is a pre-visualization genius. talk to Ralph if you question his choice of equipment and working-style.

 

'Deus ex Machina' is a great overview of the Gibson oeuvre, however the images are small and pedestrianly printed. 'Chiaroscuro' is a major work of beauty and photographic-art.

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  • 5 months later...

After reading this dude's name uttered in such high reverence on this forum a few times and deciding to do something about it, I just stumbled upon this thread through google and ordered seven of his books - five used ones through abebooks (Overtones, Chiroscuro, Light Years, DEM, and Somnambulist) and two new ones (Brazil, and Refractions) from amazon. First I went to his website which put the hook in me.

 

I just wanted to say thanks for all the recommendations above.

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