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Sternfeld, Joel (Photographer) & Crary, Jonathan (Contributor) : Idubai: Photographs By Joel Sternfeld

Gerhard Steidl Druckerei Und Verlag, Gottingen, Germany, 2010

ISBN 3865219160

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 160 pages. Retrospective collection of color photographs. One of the most important documentary photography books of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a tiny first print run as a hardcover original only. A brilliant production by Joel Sternfeld and Gerhard Steidl: Small-size volume format in wide oblong shape. Orange cloth boards with gilt titles embossed on the cover and spine and shimmering glitter, as issued. Photographs by Joel Sternfeld. Essay by Jonathan Crary. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Gottingen, Germany to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Joel Sternfeld's "iDubai". Cell-phone images. Every page consists of three, actual-size reproductions of digital pictures that Sternfeld took using his Apple iPhone (hence the title). Since he is not just another iPhone user, his images capture a phenomenal social reality as no other photographer has thus far (except perhaps for Martin Parr, who has not, however, adopted the iPhone camera) : An exhaustive and exhilarating mobile gaze of a wholly man-made, artificial Paradise on Earth, fully realized in the desert cosmopolis of Dubai. There is nothing else in the world quite like Dubai: A wholehearted, total embrace of Western capitalism (in its most advanced consumerist phase) by a Middle Eastern/Arab kingdom whose values and culture remain, at least officially, orthodox Muslim. That more and more of Dubai's inhabitants are self-transplanted, permanent-resident Westerners is a testament to its magnetic allure (they help run the country efficiently). "What Parisian shopping arcades were to the nineteenth century and early-capitalism, Dubai's luxurious mega-malls are to the new millennium and late-capitalism. The Baudelairean flaneur, who patrolled the avenues as a detached observer, is today replaced by the 'phoneur', a wired wanderer who uses a cell phone to text, call, surf, and snap digital images on the fly" (Publisher's blurb). Sternfeld does show some of the workers who have made all of this possible, contract labor imported from Third World countries (just as all of the luxury goods are imported from the West), thereby offering a powerful visual critique of Dubai as the Persian Gulf's Disney World, "locating subtler social strata and interactions". An absolute "must-have" title for Joel Sternfeld collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed and dated in black pen on the title page by the photographer: "Joel Sternfeld 10/19/15". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary photography classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed and dated copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. 70 color plates. Joel Sternfeld's "American Prospects" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". One of the finest American photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOEL STERNFELD TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 3865219160.

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