Perhaps Nabokov prefigured Attracted to Light in his fictional four-volume set called The Butterflies and Moths of the Russian Empire in Father’s Butterflies: “The illustrations are still more perfect—the downy, velvety texture, the blurry translucence of various families of moths are rendered so delicately you would be afraid to run your finger across the paper....” A sumptuously oversized and exquisitely produced book, Attracted to Light showcases the Starns’ extensive conceptual portrait series of the nocturnal moths’ mysterious journey and the seeming gravitational force that light has over them, “captured” in photographs and filmic video footage. “Light necessitates darkness, the shadow created by anything physical. But black is not only the lack of light—it is also the complete absorption of light. The void and reservoir of what we want, what we need; light is power, it is knowledge. When we look into the deep, velvety black eyes of moths we see both emptiness and (the absorption of) light. No one understands why moths are attracted to light. It's neither to mate nor to eat: many moths don’t eat at all; some don't even have mouths. Like butterflies, moths are almost as light as air, but they’re the poor stupid cousins. Choosing to live their lives at night, flying from nowhere towards the end of their lives—fragile, dusty wings in tatters. A moth will bounce across a ceiling, orbit a lamp, fly into a flame, or self-immolate like a Buddhist monk.” —Doug and Mike Starn

Attracted to Light

Arts & Photography

A Blind Spot Book

Doug Starn

Mike Starn

Individual Artists

powerHouse Books

Siskind’s style of gesture and nuance, a new form of visual calligraphy, dominated his work for the next forty years, and ran parallel to the developments of his colleagues, the abstract expressionists. Siskind was not only a critical figure in modern photography, but he also influenced the work of painters of that period, including Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg. Aaron Siskind 100, the book and exhibition, honors the legacy of this legendary artist through six decades of an incredible photographic journey.

Aaron Siskind 100

Aaron Siskind

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