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Mannikko, Esko (Photographer); Jaukkuri, Maaretta & Dault, Gary Michael (Contributors) : Mexas

Hasselblad Center/Esko Mannikko, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1999

ISBN 952910703X

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 80 pages. Collection of color photographs. One of the most important photography books of our time. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An elegant production by Esko Mannikko and Petri Kuokka: Oversize-volume format. Sturdy pale blue pictorial hard boards with photographic reproduction pasted on cover and metallic-silver titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Esko Mannikko. Essays by Maaretta Jaukkuri and Gary Michael Dault. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in Finland to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Esko Mannikko's "Mexas". Photographs of Batesville and San Antonio, Texas. All of the American subjects are of Mexican descent. Hence Mannikko's clever conflation, "Mexas". Mannikko's lifelong subject, the decline of agrarian life, of rural Finland, is tenderly mirrored by the decline of rural America in this collection. It is off-putting, even depressing, something people say they do not want in their lives, as if it were ugly or toxic, an accusation that the American writer Annie Proulx had to endure all the way to "Brokeback Mountain". This is ironic because Mannikko's work breathes whereas most contemporary art and photography are lifeless exercises in Mannerist cleverness. Mannikko is a Classicist, a rarity in our shallow "post-modern" art world. It is important to be reminded that in a world saturated and choking with derivative images from glossy magazines, he is The Real Thing, a great artist: His impeccable compositional sense and formalist use of color as well as his aesthetic rigor and faultless eye are not just "world-class". They set Mannikko apart from other living photographers, and make him an artist in a class of his own. Mainstream recognition of his genius is long overdue. An absolute "must-have" title for Esko Mannikko collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in blue ink-pen on the title page by Esko Mannikko. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great photography book. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. 50 color plates. Esko Mannikko's "Naarashauki: The Female Pike" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". One of the greatest photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ESKO MANNIKKO TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 952910703X.

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