andrew moore - Reflex Amsterdam

M A K I N G H IST O R Y
A NDR EW M OOR E
1980 - 2010
S E L E C T E D PH OTO G R A PH S
S E L E C T E D PH OTO G R A PH S
1 9 80 - 2 010
R e f l e x E d i t i on s A m s t erdam
Laser Proof
ANDR EW MOORE
A N D R EW M O O R E
M A K I N G H I S TO RY
SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHS
1 9 8 0 - 2010
R e f le x E ditions A msterdam
MAKING HISTORY
Under a bright, cotton-cloud sky, the rooftop
no longer available to the senses: cities turned
of a New Jersey casino heads for the state of
to dust, all the breakfasts of the Czar, the bones
nature and stalls out at primitive art. Slathered
of vanished generations. For a photographer,
in tar and rustproof paint, it looks only vaguely
the past exists only in the form of things
like architecture, the way a bear enclosure at
present. Bullet holes expose rebar in the walls
the zoo resembles a cave. Tall letters peeking
of a Bosnian housing complex. A naval outpost
through the paint read “OW”; their reflection
of the Czar tips gently into the encroaching
in a weed-choked puddle replies, “OM.”
Baltic. A trepanned human skull sits on a high
shelf in the souvenir-crammed apartment of a
Andrew Moore photographs the layered,
Crimean bear trainer.
impure theater of manmade time.
Even if the writer decides to imitate a camera
In the home of Cuba’s former emissary to
by enumerating details in a scene, those details
the Vatican, a green office is inhabited by
will need to assume a fixed sequence: first the
four portraits. Two of them, a faded Cubist
skull, then the fruit and cheese laid out on the
watercolor and an Academic chalk rendering,
table below, lastly the buffalo horn and tennis
hang framed in corners of the room. In a
racket hanging on the wall. What writing can’t
larger-than-lifesize photograph above the
recreate is the way the present perpetually
window, Che Guevara flashes a matinee idol’s
assembles energies that have come to it from
grin. On the desk, facing a well-thumbed
all over the past. The present is a lens that
Russian-Spanish dictionary, stands a white
advances through time, concentrating stories
figurine of president Machado, who died under
momentarily, tenuously, before they scatter.
anaesthesia in Miami Beach two decades before
the revolution.
Near the bullet holes—records of the fouryear siege of Sarajevo—hangs laundry that has
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A writer charged with describing the past
been drying a few hours. Out front, a moped
enjoys the privilege of invoking things that are
has just been parked. Gypsy kids, roughly the
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age of the bullet holes, watch a photographer
of avoiding other suspect, maudlin labels, like
at work. In the distance, two dogs stand on a
poet. Wary of sentimentality, the great modern
shattered balcony from which a sapling sprouts,
American photographers did all they could to
haloed by the year’s first spring leaves. Every
convert scenes they found in the public realm
surface in the scene is touched on one side by
into private puzzles. Evans’s insistently off-
late afternoon sun.
center compositions, Robert Frank’s palette of
glare and grain, Stephen Shore’s contemplative
“Men make their own history, but they do
color fields, leave us at an abstract remove from
not make it as they please; they do not make
history. Moore takes an interest in history
it under self-selected circumstances, but under
of a public and legible kind. His pictures, in
circumstances existing already, given and
their directness and acuity, are not about his
transmitted from the past.” Andrew Moore
experience of places. They are about what an
takes the economic and political circumstances
attunement to experience has to tell us about
Marx had in mind and nests them within the
places that define the present.
circumstances of natural history: Detroit’s
vines and mosses, the patient sands of Dubai,
Times Square, 1996, night. Beneath the
dusk light in New York. Hubert Robert painted
unlettered marquee of a shuttered cinema, what
shepherds living amid the tall leafy ruins of the
was once a palatial ticket lobby is a lit-up shop
Roman Campagna. Moore has photographed
promising porn at “closeout prices.” Atop the
pedicabs at rest under the open sky inside
marquee, with the theater’s shadowy beaux-arts
Havana’s crumbling Teatro Campo Amor,
façade for a backdrop, cursive red neon letters
and Japanese compact cars parked before the
spell: Empire.
proscenium of Detroit’s Michigan Theater.
Above them vaults a ceiling that looks imported
from Hadrian’s Villa.
Lincoln Kirstein called Walker Evans “a
Pink Chamber,
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surgeon operating on the fluid body of time.”
Joel Smith, Curator of Photography
To call the photographer a surgeon was a way
Princeton University Art Museum
Noto Sicily 2004
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Palace Theater, Gary Indiana 2008
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National Time, Detroit 2009
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Reading Room, Detroit 2009
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Circular Lobby, United Artist Theater, Detroit 2008
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7.
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Ballroom, Lee Plaza Hotel, Detroit 2008
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Merman Graffito, Fisher Body Plant, Detroit 2009
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Waiting Room, Michigan Central Station, Detroit 2008
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Masonic Office, New Orleans 1980
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The Rouge, Dearborn, Michigan 2008
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Model T Headquarters, Highland Park, Michigan 2009
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Michigan Theater, Detroit 2008
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Aurora, Detroit 2008
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Librarian’s Office, Detroit 2009
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Vanity Ballroom, Detroit 2008
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Organ Screen, United Artist Theater, Detroit 2008
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Locomotive Workers’ Theater, Ulan Ude, Russia 2003
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Peacock Alley, Detroit 2008
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Piano, Lee Plaza Hotel, Detroit 2009
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Dormitorio de Luisa y María, Havana 1999
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Matanzas, Cuba
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1999
La Chimenea, Havana 1998
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Calle Industria, Havana 1998
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Cuarto en El Cerro, Havana 1999
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Teatro Campoamor, Vista Este,
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Havana 1999
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Marisol, Havana 1999
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Wreck, Jibarra, Cuba 2008
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Vedado Azul, Havana 2001
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Teatro America, Havana 2000
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Despacho de Portuondo, Havana 2000
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En Casa con Los Alonso, Havana 1999
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Margarita, Havana 1999
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Teatro Campoamor, Vista Oeste, Havana 1999
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Salon de Musica, Havana 1999
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Gran Teatro García Lorca, Havana
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1998
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Abandoned Church, Vologda, Russia 2004
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Volodya’s Apartment, Simferopol, Ukraine 2003
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Watchman’s Room, Siberia 2003
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Ukranian Pavilion, VDNKH Moscow 2004
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Swimming Pool, Ukraina Sanatorium, Yalta 2003
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Radio Station in former Synagogue, Simferopol, Ukraine 2003
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Opera House,
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Irkutsk, Russia 2003
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Baron’s Library, Noto, Sicily 2004
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Casino Rooftop, Asbury Park, NJ 2004
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Blockhouse in Sea, Liepaja, Latvia 2007
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Hang Khoai, Hanoi 2006
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Gypsy Camp, Sarajevo 2002
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Watchman and Landing Pad,
Al Reem Island, Abu Dhabi 2009
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View towards Al Wahda Stadium, Abu Dhabi 2009
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Street Prayers, Saaha’ba Mosque, Abu Dhabi 2009
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Duffy Square, New York 2002
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Bowling Lanes, Governors Island, New York 2003
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Contact, Times Square, New York 2002
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Theater Boxes, Times Square, New York 1995
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Nassau and Fulton Streets, New York 1982
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Empire Theater, Times Square, New York 1995
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ANDR EW M O O R E
MAKING HISTORY
SELECTED PHOTOGRA PH S
1981 - 2010
Gallery Alex Daniels, Amsterdam
10 april - 7 june, 2010
COLOPH O N
Photographs: ©Andrew Moore
Text: ©Joel Smith
Book and cover design: Alex Daniels.
Published by Reflex Editions, Amsterdam, 2010.
All rights reserved. All images courtesy of Andrew
Moore and Galerie Alex Daniels - Reflex Amsterdam.
Edition: 500
Print: Meco Offset BV Zwaag, The Netherlands.
Printed and finished in The Netherlands.
This is an edition of 500 of which 100 are numbered
and signed by the artist.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
prior written permission from the copyright holders.
ISBN/EAN: 978 90 71848 094
Weteringschans 83 1017 RZ Amsterdam
Open: di t/m za 11.00 - 18.00 uur.
Tel. 020 - 627 28 32 / 020 - 423 54 23
info@reflexamsterdam.com - www.reflexamsterdam.com
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