DREAM ABOUT NOTHING by Bobby Doherty Photobook

About the productJapanese

This is a collection of works by American photographer Bobby Doherty. Highly acclaimed for his still-life photography, Doherty boldly juxtaposes individual images linked by wordplay, elevating his unique and sophisticated visual language into a place of ineffable, unconscious associations.

The artist's photographs are very self-explanatory: alloy wheels, flowers, drink cans, zucchinis... but taken as a whole, their meaning becomes distorted. The photo of a popsicle takes on a different weight when placed next to a butterfly with tattered wings. So what are we trying to see? The artist's images overwhelm us with questions that challenge what we consider ordinary and what we consider extraordinary, and ask an even bigger question: "Why is nothing important?", which goes beyond "why is this more important than that".

In this work, the artist seeks a more introspective expression of his highly consistent visual practice, encouraging us to move away from the visually collapsed and image-heavy language of much contemporary still-life and observational photography, and instead laying out the observed objects and places before our eyes with meticulous care and precision. What does this mean?

The artist has been more serious about this question than his upbeat colors and skillful compositions would suggest. Photographed over a five-year period in and outside of his studio, the images dismantle the warm words of his previous work, Seabird, and arrange them in rhyming sentences, collapsing image categories.

These photographs ask us to engage with the essence of photographic expression, making us feel a little uncomfortable. They tear at the seams of visual categories, asking us to take more and less from each image at the same time. From the large to the small, the broken to the pristine, the book presents one image after another that the artist has worked into magic, waiting breathlessly for the reader to turn the next page.

Acclaimed still-life photographer Doherty pushes his precise visual language to a place of inarticulation and unconscious association, in a bold sequence of singular image arrangements, rhymed and bonded together.

Individually, Bobby Doherty's photographs are quite clear. In front of you, a flower, a drinks can, a courgette, next an alloy wheel. But collectively their meanings become distorted. A photo of a popsicle carries a different weight once it is opposite a battered butterfly. But what are you meant to be looking at? Doherty's images attempt to overwhelm the viewer with questions about what we consider mundane, and what we view as special, in order to ask a greater question: one that transcends “why this over that” but instead, “why anything at all?”

In Dream About Nothing, Doherty embarks on a more introspective articulation of his unusually consistent visual practice. He invites us to pull back from the visually-tumbling-image-overload language that much of contemporary still-life and observational photography relents itself to, instead placing, with utmost care and precision, a line of observed things and places before your eyes. What does it all mean?

Doherty takes this question more seriously than the serotonin colors and satisfying framing of his images may suggest. Across five years of continuously photographing within and without the studio, Doherty rhymes images into a place where their categories break down, stripping away much of the warmer language of his previous book, Seabird. to the small, the broken to the pristine, Dream About Nothing shows Bobby Doherty making magic, as he rushes to the next photograph, waiting for you to turn the next page.

Product Information

release date Available now

Part numberGPHT12066W-9781912719501

Specification hardcover／120 pages／240 x 305 mm

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