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Bleckner, Ross : Page Three: Ross Bleckner Photographs

Twin Palms Publishers, Santa Fe, NM, 1998

ISBN 0944092594

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 124 pages. Artist Book. Limited Slipcased Edition of 150 numbered and signed copies. Precedes and should not be confused with the Limited Edition of 3000 copies. The Limited Slipcased Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Ross Bleckner and Jack Woody: Oversize-volume format. The elongated shape is not an artistic vanity: It captures on the page the mural dimensions characteristic of Bleckner's art. Black cloth boards with metallic-black art reproduction embossed on cover and titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by Ross Bleckner. There is no text. Black cloth slipcase. Printed in gravure on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in Tokyo, Japan to the highest standards. In matching pictorial DJ with white titles on the spine, as issued. Presents Ross Bleckner's "Page Three". The first and only collection of photographs by the painter. A pictorial autobiography-of-sorts and an ambitious (if ambiguous) commentary on larger contemporary issues at the same time. It is surely more than interesting that all, not just some, of the greatest late-modern American artists (Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, to name only four of them) are homosexual. Except for Warhol, none of them has explored the subject of sexuality in their work in any significant way, and they stubbornly refuse to self-identify as "gay", a personal decision that has been bitterly criticized by some, but must surely be respected by everyone else who values a human being's, not just an artist's, now-beleaguered right to privacy. Bleckner is openly and proudly gay, and insists, not just suggests, that it is the central element of his art. His collection consists of original as well as appropriated images juxtaposed to dramatize, not just visualize, the extreme contrasts of the world that we live in today: Privacy versus public-ity, wealth versus poverty, peace versus war, health versus illness, pleasure versus pain, love versus hate, Life versus Death. There are many explicit photographs of his lover's penis, photographed in extreme closeups and in an unusual, imaginative, and erotic way. "Travels over the intimate contours of a lover's body and the pages of his daily newspaper [hence the title]. Collaged, blurred, inverted, enlarged, and cropped, the artist juxtaposes paragraphs of newspaper type with pictures that suggest his intent, but stop short of revealing a true purpose. At times, even when we are sure of what is before us, succeeding and opposing images intimate that all is not as it appears to be. An effort by the artist to suggest that all we reach out to and all we touch is the mirror that becomes us" (Publisher's blurb). An absolute "must-have" title for Ross Bleckner collectors. This copy is one of the Limited Slipcased Edition, indicated/numbered as such on the Back Limitation Page. It is very boldly and beautifully signed in metallic-silver pen-marker on the title page by Ross Bleckner. This title is a contemporary photography book classic. This is one of few copies of the Limited Edition still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. 95 sheetfed gravure plates. One of the most brilliant American artists of our time. A flawless collectible copy. . ISBN 0944092594.

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