IMG_ – artist book

Details

ProjectIMG_
Year2014
Role Artist
Output Publication
ConceptJohan Nieuwenhuize
TextRobin van Emden, Malcolm Dickson
Design-SYB-
LithographySebastiaan Hanekroot, Colour & Books
Offset printingGeers Offset, Gent, Belgium
Edition1000

IMG_ is a growing collection of abstract and semi-abstract photographic observations of “the city”: structures, buildings, cars, and reflections.
The work represents an active visual archive consisting of images made during Nieuwenhuize’s travels to different cities in Europe and the USA.

The way the images are combined, is based on the “Kuleshov effect”, demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s. In his short film a portrait shot of a man is alternated with shots of 1. a bowl of soup, 2. a dead child in a coffin, and 3. a woman on a divan. In each context the expressionless face of the man is interpreted differently by the viewer: hunger, sadness, lust.

With IMG_, Nieuwenhuize applies this psychological phenomenon in order to shift the meaning of individual images, alter the context and let the viewer associate freely, to form new meanings.
In his presentations of photoworks he does so by repeating images and presenting the viewer different combinations. In the book the viewer can make new combinations of images by the means of four fold-outs.