Building + Becoming reviewed in Artillery

A MEASURED COOLNESS

Building + Becoming by Amir Zaki

REVIEWED BY CHRISTOPHER MICHNO

The works of Amir Zaki subtly subverts analog photography's long-held truth claims. His photography, surveyed in the newly published artist book Building+ Becoming, addresses the artist's digital manipulation and, setting aside the medium's presumed objectivity and fidelity to representation, invites the question, "to what end"?

Illuminated by two texts, "Stealing Light," a conversation with Corrina Peipon, and "Addition by Subtraction," an essay by Jen­nifer Ashton and Walter Benn Michaels, Building + Becoming explores Zaki's formation as an artist, touches briefly on biograph­ical notes and artistic lineage and examines his process while engaging in critical dialog. Ashton and Michaels also analyze the technological and post-production practices integral to Zaki's images. At the core of their inquiry is the apparent contradiction in his claim of the Modernist tradition, via Edward Weston, and his use of a Gigapan device, which enables him to take a series of adjacent photos and stitch them together with software, resulting in works that defy the singular perspective associated with Mod­ernist photography.

See the full review here.

Alexandra Grant