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Sunday, November 8, 2009

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Galleries

A Previous Life

Cartier-Bresson said the only joy in photos is geometry. Lucky for us, Toronto photographer Marshall Sokoloff doesn’t disappoint. A gallery of six weeks’ work, sorting through the rubble.

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A note on ‘A Previous Life,’ by Jim Coudal: There was a building there. There will be a building there. In between, Marshall Sokoloff was pointing his camera straight down, composing. He took these photos over six weeks in September and October of 2002 in Toronto.

In the life of this plot of land, this is a temporary condition, this two-dimensional state, filled with cracks and gravel and textures and chipping paint. The straight lines and sharp angles are the remnants of a previous life. Marshall found a present-tense there and has documented it in sweet, mathematical compositions.

Light and tone are important. The series has a lovely feel, like the end of the day, but it’s the cropping within the camera that appeals to me. His balancing and editing of shapes within the frame’s rectangle can be seen as an exercise. Each picture in the series answers the same set of structural questions in a slightly different manner. Collectively, the series seems more musical than anything else, like variations on a simple, precise melody.


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—Published March 13, 2003 » Email this » Save in De.li.cious » Add to Digg

out-mothered

The Mommy Wars

Non-Expert Jessica Francis Kane leads her followers into the battle of the playground.

INFINITE SUMMER

Dracula

Sponsored by TMN, the online book club reads the vampire novel that sired them all.
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Digest

No Take Backs

Recently unmasked producer Burial joins his old schoolmate Four Tet on a cryptically released 12-inch. The result is two post-rock peregrinations sure to set your perceptions on edge.

The Renegades

T. Jefferson Parker is one of a handful of crime writers who either live or formerly resided in Southern California and who deserve not to be saddled with the stigma of genre writing.

Chewing Up the Small Screen

While more well-known for “big screen” parts, actors of note Tim Roth and Ian McShane can be seen raising the stakes on the so-called “small screen” this season in Lie to Me and Kings, respectively.