Nina Katchadourian at Catharine Clark is the Daily Pic by Blake Gopnik
The Daily Pic: Nina Katchadourian shows that old books still speak.
(Courtesy Nina Katchadourian and Catharine Clark gallery, San Francisco)
This is an image from the most recent series in Nina Katchadourian’s “Sorted Books” project, ongoing now for 20 years – and recently published as a book from Chronicle and feted at Catharine Clark's New York space. Katchadourian “curates” selections of books from private or public libraries, and presents her poetic cullings in photographs. Here, her cull took place at the Delaware Art Museum’s M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, where the artist found much more than mere decoration: “I noticed a curious surge in late 19th-century fiction romanticizing Native Americans and despaired when I realized how this coincided with their violent displacement and decimation.” As with most of Katchadourian’s works, the titles here come together as a single meta-title: “Indian History For Young Folks: Our Village, Your National Parks.” (Another meta-title I love: “Somewhere in France/The Anglomaniacs/Meet the Germans”.)
For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.
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