Vincent Borrelli, Bookseller

Invisible City: Photographs by Ken Schles [SIGNED]

SCHLES, Ken

Publisher: Pasadena, California: Twelvetrees Press, 1988
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 094264235X
Condition: Fine / Near Fine
Item #: 107226

$750.00

Specifics

First edition, first printing. Signed and dated "NYC 2008" in black ink on the title page by Schles. Hardcover. Navy blue cloth-covered boards with title blindstamped on cover and spine; with photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs by Ken Schles. Text excerpted from Lewis Mumford, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka and Jean Baudrillard. Unpaginated (80 pp.), with full-bleed black-and-white gravure plates throughout beautifully printed on heavy matte paper. 9-1/8 x 6-7/8 inches. This first edition was limited to 2000 copies. [Cited in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume III. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2014)].

Condition

Fine in Near Fine dust jacket (some very light indentations, visible only in raking light).

Description

Schles' gritty photographs of urban life--an homage of sorts to Weegee's Naked City--are juxtaposed with key texts on life in modern cities. The end result is a disquieting book in which urban existence is presented as both exhilarating and heartless.