A worthwhile monograph of the artistic work of Ian Strange. . He, along with Gregory Crewdson, James Casebere and Gordon Matta Clark use domestic housing as the focal point of their art, although Crewdson takes it further by creating elaborate tableaus with people in or outside a house.
The book considers seven multiple examples of Strange's work, from Suburban in 2011 up to 'Island' in 2015-2017. Iso started in 2016 is still ongoing and I thought the least interesting of his work as it's the nighttime street shots of Perth, Australia and Mountainside, New Jersey, USA. The six photos are dark and show very little except street lights. Final act from 2013 is much more fascinating. Four houses on one street were selected from 16,000 due to be demolished because of a severe earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand during 2011. One house, in particular, looks intriguing because Strange removed a strip of the exterior wall right around the building, lit it from the inside and photographed it. Zloty from 2015 shows a building in Katowice, Poland with the exterior completely covered in golden wallpaper. It was on display for eleven months before being knocked down.
Strange's work exists only as photographs because he uses the exteriors of homes that are to be demolished. Three buildings in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio had their exteriors painted with black letters, SOS, HELP, or RUN, the height of the property.
The landscape book has three essays in the front with some back pages showing Strange and his crew preparing the houses. All of these pages are printed on matt stock. The 113 pages of photos are printed on a smooth art paper with an impressive 250 screen.
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