Author Description

This book accompanies a comprehensive retrospective based on around 200 photographs by Nicholas Nixon (b. 1947 in Detroit), who has produced one of the most powerful and personal photographic oeuvres of the past few decades. Nixon expresses himself in a poetic voice that is unmistakable and profoundly original, unaffected by the pressure of contemporary artistic movements and closely connected to reality and life. He returns to the idea of art as an account that can be understood, shared and remembered, establishing a reflexive dialogue and creating a body of work that can trouble us, arouse desires, encourage thought, and transform us. Nixon's photographs can thus be associated with the tradition of documentary photography with a social focus. At the same time, Nixon's work offers a remarkable demonstration of how the traditional tools of photography--a large-format camera, black and white film and contact sheets--can be used to venture into previously unexplored artistic territories. The book offers a chronological survey based on the artist's most important series, concluding with the well-known group of the Brown Sisters that he has created over the past 40 years.