Stadt Des Schwarz / Eighteeen Photographs of Berlin
John Gossage. Washington DC: Loosestrife Editions 1987. First Edition. [8] pages plus 16 photographs on 8 leaves. Folio ( 13 3/4 x 18 3/8 inches) Publisher's black cloth with original photograph inset on front cover. Original clear acetate cover with a touch of rubbing. Fine / Near Fine. Cloth. [23571]
Published in an edition of 500 copies, this is number 22/500. Signed by photographer John Gossage. Additional inscription underneath "For Sabina and Richard May day 1987, J G" Sabina and Richard Yanul owned the Washington DC bookstore Franz Bader Bookstore and were actively interested in photography in general. The photographs in this book (mostly very dark, introspective images) were made in Berlin between 1982-1986. With an introduction by Jane Livingstone, and 3 legends based on the collection of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.
"In 1982 John Gossage was invited to Berlin by the Werkstatt fur Fotographie in Kreuzberg, a visit that would radically change his work. He began to photograph the Berlin Wall, and returned repeatedly for the next decade to make an extended meditation on the subject...of which the most important [work] was his 1987 book Stadt des Schwarz (City of Black)...The Berlin Wall gave Gossage the opportunity to add a historical and political dimension to his work...These night pictures from Berlin were Gossage's first 'surveillence' photographs, where he adopted both the technique and language of spying through photography that took place across the wall. His almost black pictures ((shot in both East and West Berlin) replicate the ominous sense of of dangerous games being played in the dark and also reflect on the power of photography itself, both to snoop and to control, but also to uncover things that are hidden." (Parr and Badger, Vol 2 p. 64)
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