Jason Eskenazi Explained

Jason Eskenazi (born April 23, 1960)[1] is an American photographer, based in Brooklyn, New York. The majority of his photography is from the countries of the former Soviet Union, including his book Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith (2008).[2]

Eskenazi received the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, both in 1999.[3] Wonderland won first place in a book award from Pictures of the Year International in 2008.[4]

Biography

Eskenazi was born April 23, 1960, in Queens, New York. He attended Bayside High School then studied psychology and American literature at Queens College. While at Queens College he was photo editor for the yearbook, assisted photographers on assignment and worked as a freelance photographer for the Queens Tribune. After graduation he worked in darkrooms, obtained local photo assignments, continued as an assistant and interned at a photo agency in New York. At age 29, inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall, he began to travel and make photographs.[5] His first trips were to Romania (for its first democratic election) and to Germany, then Russia in 1991 just before the August coup that marked the end of the Soviet Union.[6]

In 2004 and 2005 Eskenazi directed a Kids with Cameras project in Jerusalem,[7] teaching photography to Arab Muslims and Jewish children. Their photographs were exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Oklahoma, and Montreal, and in Eskenazi's self-published book, Beyond the Wall.

In 2005, funded by a grant from the Fulbright Program, Eskenazi and Russian photographer travelled in the Russian Federation, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. They made color portraits of people using a 4×5 large format camera,[8] resulting in the book Title Nation.

For economic reasons as well as to obtain health insurance, Eskenazi worked from 2008 to 2009 as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. During this time, he worked as a guard for the exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans, which allowed him much time to study and be inspired by Robert Frank's photographs. He asked renowned photographers and others he recognized visiting the exhibition what their favorite image was from Frank's book The Americans, and why. He edited the resulting notes and thoughts of 276 photographers into a book, By the Glow of the Jukebox: The Americans List.[9] William Meyers, writing in The Wall Street Journal, favorably reviewed The Americans List,[10] as did photographer David Carol.[11]

Eskenazi is one of the founding editors of Sw!pe magazine, created by guards at the Metropolitan who are artists in their free time.[12] [13] Eskenazi co-founded Red Hook Editions, a publishing cooperative of photographers.[14] He is co-creator of a large-format zine titled Dog Food, blending parody and photography and also published online.[15] [16]

The trilogy

Eskenazi's preferred way of disseminating his work is the photobook. His most important work is a trilogy of photobooks spanning 30 years. Although their page size varies, they share a common design with bare boards and an open spine. Each consists of three numbered sections; the numbering of these sections, and of the plates, is consecutive across the trilogy. In each book, the photography style appears documentary black and white, but the photos are recontextualized in an imagined conceptual and visual narrative.[17]

For the first of these books, Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith, Eskenazi undertook an extensive project in Russia and the former Soviet Union between 1991 and 2001. Using the fairy tale as a framework, he "took the title of his book from Alice in Wonderland, [and] likens the breakup of the Soviet Union (and the food and security provided by the Communist Party) to the end of childhood."[18] Eugene Richards commented: "Most photographers today either do art photography or create blunt, in-your-face messages. . . . The place he went to could be seen in a million ways, but Eskenazi always seems to capture the little non-moments, the lonely souls." An exhibition of the work was held at the Leica Gallery in New York. The book won first prize in Pictures of the Year International's 'Best Use Books' category in 2008.[4]

In 2011 Eskenazi successfully raised funding via a Kickstarter campaign to complete The Black Garden, envisioned as "a companion to" Wonderland and a photographic investigation of the East–west divide.[19] [20] It appeared, eight years later, as the second volume (largest in format) of a trilogy.

The framework for The Black Garden is Greek mythology, and the book was photographed within "the vast geographical and mythical world known to ancient Greece", from the Mediterranean to the Caucasus, including Turkey, Greece, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya, and Sicily, as well as New York City.

The third book in the trilogy, Departure Lounge completes the cycle by revisiting the territory of the first book, forming "an aged or matured Wonderland, as you can see some of the Wonderland characters reappearing in Departure Lounge". The book investigates how we depart from reality, from friends, and from ourselves. The Black Garden and Departure Lounge were published simultaneously in 2019. Eskenazi felt that with that release, his work was completed, and has stated his intention to quit photography and start a family.

Publications

Publications by Eskenazi

Publications edited by Eskenazi

Publications with contributions by Eskenazi

Awards and grants

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Exhibitions with others

Exhibitions curated by Eskenazi

Collections

Eskenazi's work is held in the following collections:

Notes

  1. http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/jerusalem/?section=1 Kids with Cameras, Jerusalem
  2. [James Estrin]
  3. Web site: Jason Eskenazi. 9 April 2018 . .
  4. Web site: First Place Best Use Books. 27 December 2013 . .
  5. Web site: Jason Eskenazi. 7 March 2014 . Light Work . 20 March 2013 .
  6. Web site: The Authors. 10 March 2014 . Red Hook Editions .
  7. Web site: Eskenazi turns kids into photographers. 10 February 2008 . 27 December 2013 . Winn . Steven . .
  8. Web site: Jason Eskenazi. 7 March 2014 . The Fulbright Program in Russia .
  9. Web site: The Americans List: A Salute to Robert Frank. https://web.archive.org/web/20121008082155/http://lightbox.time.com/2012/10/04/the-americans-list-a-salute-to-robert-frank/#1 . dead . October 8, 2012 . 4 October 2012 . 7 March 2014 . Bicker . Phil . .
  10. Web site: Gift Guide 2012: Photography . 16 November 2012 . 7 March 2014 . Meyers . William . .
  11. Web site: Book of the Week: A Pick by David Carol. 4 September 2013 . 7 March 2014 . David . Carol . David Carol . Photo-Eye .
  12. News: Hoping to Graduate From Guards to Gauguins. 5 March 2010 . 9 March 2014 . Niko . Koppel . .
  13. Web site: Museum Guards 'Sw!pe' the Spotlight. 22 March 2010 . 9 March 2014 . Margot . Adler . .
  14. "About & contact", Red Hook Editions. Accessed 18 May 2019.
  15. Dogfood within Eskenazi's site.
  16. Web site: Dog Food for the Mind and Soul. 12 July 2013 . 27 December 2013 . McCann . Matt . .
  17. Reuben Radding, "Jason Eskenazi's post-Wonderland odyssey brings him full circle", Focus on the Story, 17 September 2018. Accessed 18 May 2019.
  18. [Margot Adler]
  19. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1903672981/the-black-garden-a-new-photography-project The Black Garden: A New Photography Project by Jason Eskenazi
  20. Web site: Exploring the Great East-West Divide. 17 June 2011 . 7 March 2014 . Estrin . James . .
  21. Its web page at de.MO (as retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 8 March 2014) is here. Eskenazi's description (as retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 21 November 2008) is here.
  22. Eskenazi's description (as retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 29 April 2011) is here.
  23. Eskenazi's description (as retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 9 November 2020) is here. Red Hook's page about Wonderland is here.
  24. Its web page at Schilt (as retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 28 December 2013) is here.
  25. Red Hook's page about Black Garden.
  26. Red Hook's page about Departure Lounge.
  27. Its web page at Blurb is here.
  28. Its web page at Red Hook is here.
  29. It is available to read within Eskenazi's site at http://jasoneskenazi.com/DOGFOOD_01.pdf
  30. It is available to read within Eskenazi's site at http://jasoneskenazi.com/DOGFOOD_02.pdf
  31. It is available to read at http://issuu.com/dogfoodmagazine/docs/df3-web (Issuu)
  32. Web site: Jason Eskenazi. 10 March 2014 . .
  33. Web site: 2019-02-12. Guide to the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize Photography Collection, 1996-2005. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
  34. Web site: Resident Alumni Updates . 10 March 2014 . Blue Mountain Center . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140310225237/http://www.bluemountaincenter.org/alumni/links?page=6 . 10 March 2014 .
  35. Web site: Visual Artists . 10 March 2014 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20140310213044/http://www.yaddo.org/yaddo/artistlists.asp?hiddenaction=display&discipline=Visual+Artist&pagehead=Visual+Artists . 10 March 2014 . dead .
  36. Web site: [ftp://ftp.mageenet.biz/Yaddo/804146_AnnualReport.pdf Yaddo Annual Report 2007]. 10 March 2014 . .
  37. Web site: history 2004 . 7 March 2014 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20131019101757/http://www.visapourlimage.com/history/2004.do . 19 October 2013 . dead .
  38. Web site: Bloc Busters. 10 March 2014 . UC Regents .
  39. Web site: Arts Listings. 10 March 2014 . The Berkeley Daily Planet .
  40. Bob Black, "Jason Eskenazi's Wonderland: A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith", The Fader, 14 November 2008. Accessed 1 May 2014.
  41. Eliza Honey, "We were born to make fairy tales come true". New Yorker, 13 October 2008. Accessed 1 May 2014.
  42. Its web page within Eskenazi's site is here.
  43. Vanishing Points at Ground Zero. 6 September 2011 . 10 March 2014 . Wender . Jessie . .
  44. Web site: "Caucasus" and "Haiti: The Boys of Summer". 10 March 2014 . .
  45. A video of the projected exhibit can be watched here at vimeo.com.
  46. Web site: Half Photos, Striving to be More. 9 June 2012 . 7 March 2014 . Estrin . James . .
  47. Web site: Double Zero by Jason Eskenazi. 8 March 2014 . Develop Photo . 19 June 2013 .
  48. "Staff and Faculty News 2013", International Center of Photography. Accessed 1 May 2014.
  49. Invitation from the Leica Gallery, reproduced here (PDF) in the website of Lynn H. Butler. Accessed 1 May 2014.
  50. "Jason Eskenazi ", Fotoleggendo.
  51. News: Bursa Fotofest: A photography break on the Silk Road. 23 October 2011 . 7 March 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140307194545/http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=260672 . 7 March 2014 . Kahveci̇ . Mühenna . Today's Zaman .
  52. Web site: Staff & Faculty News 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20140310214205/http://www.icp.org/about-icp/staff-news/past-news/2013 . 10 March 2014 . 10 March 2014 . .
  53. Web site: Collections: Photography: Baku, Azerbaijan. 10 March 2014 . .

External links

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jason Eskenazi".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.