Nicholas Nixon: Photographs from One Year (Untitled, No. 31)

Friends of Photography Bookstore [Published date: 1983]. Untitled 31: This publication is the 31st in a series of publications on serious photography by The Friends of Photography. Soft cover, 48 pp. [From Preface] Even though it is the nature of the medium to enable photographers to take as many images as their temperament allows, it has been a common practice to work for single "masterpieces", and to consider the remainder of a month's work as trials and, largely, failures. In the past decade, however, certain artists have defined territories of interest that could allow the taking of many successful photographs. The idea of the masterful image became a less important part of the aesthetic vocabulary. Along with this redefinition of what constitutes a successful work of art came a detachment from traditional composition that led to a new visual freedom.Among the most important, successful and prolific of the photographers who have come to prominence over the past decade is Nicholas Nixon. In an attempt to establish a personal understanding of his vision, he has consciously worked in one-year blocks of time, with new ideas and visual modes evolving in each twelve-month period. The results have been of a consistently high quality and interest. The intensity of his vision speaks directly to such basic concerns as the nature of the human spirit. As one of the select photographers represented by Light Gallery, he chose to have a smaller exhibition there each year rather than to have the traditional biennial show. Functioning as a personal culmination for a group of pictures, this annual presentation allowed him to bring one set of ideas to completion, and to move purposefully on to the next. Thus, the commission offered by Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art in the summer of 1981 to create a body of photographs to be exhibited in the Institute's gallery only weeks after its completion supported a continuation of his way of working.