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Praise for Being in Pictures
News / Reviews
FROM THE FOREWORD
“Leonard’s art is an undisputed success. Within the framework she calls ‘intimate documentary,’ she has proved that it is possible to move from ‘the smallest picture in the show’ to a twenty-two-foot collage, missing very few beats in between …The power of these images lies not merely in personal honesty and expressive talent but in the artist’s clear-eyed acknowledgement of multiple truths.”
– Lucy R. Lippard
COLLEGUES, CRITICS, & FRIENDS
Intimate is the perfect word to describe this remarkable and beautifully designed collection, our pick for the best art book published this year. The stylistically diverse photography, which ranges from documentary photographs to photo collages, is clearly the work of a singular artist. Joanne Leonard's work, linked by her feminist politics and her deep engagement with family, comprise an autobiography in which the pictures and accompanying text echo off each other, breaking open a most interesting life and the work of a major artist.
– Karl Pohrt, Bookseller, Shaman Drum Bookshop, Ann Arbor
"More than the gripping autobiography of a feminist, a mother, an artist and a witness to the tumultuous events of the last half-century, and more than a record of Joanne Leonard's innovative and brilliant career as a photographer, Being in Pictures opens for us, in the words of Leonard's most famous work, windows of vulnerability. This moving book, with its remarkably beautiful and disturbing photographs, draws us into the most intimate and revealing moments of the creative process."
– Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University
"Joanne Leonard's work and writing have the stamp of personal integrity that distinguishes her contribution to women's art and literature. She combines fragments of different images, most based on direct life experiences, to create new-often startling-meanings, and what always shines through is the honesty-the authenticity of voice, bringing Leonard to the forefront of artists-not just female artists-in this country."
– Anthony F. Janson, co-author of Janson's History of Art
"Joanne Leonard will play an important role in the history of twentieth-century culture, art and photo history for her daring and innovative subject matter... her complex and multi-layered works address women's life narratives, twinship, dementia, miscarriage, parenting, and the stages and conditions of female subjectivity."
– Griselda Pollock, Leeds University
A printed interview about BEING IN PICTURES is at:
http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=17538
Joanne Leonard was interviewed on American Public Media's The Story on August 21, 2007.
Listen to Joanne Leonard's interview with Dick Gordon on The Story
This interview contains two interviews. The first half is "After Loss, Forgiveness.Joanne
Leonard's interview is the second half of this program.
Click here to see the photograph that Dick Gordon and Joanne Leonard discuss.
http://thestory.org/archive/ search_media?
Reviews will appear in:
Bridges, a Jewish, Feminist Journal, Fall issue
THE Magazine, December 2008
THE magazine is Santa Fe's Monthly Magazine of and for the Arts concentrating on the local, regional, and national art scenes, as well as featuring articles, reviews and interviews on the performing arts, books, films, music, and important cultural issues of the day.
An Online book review at Lens Culture
Being in Pictures, by Joanne Leonard, is an unusually successful "intimate photo memoir."
The book is arranged in wonderful groupings of photographs, collages and montages, all enlivened with short, articulate prose that interweaves a personal life story with the art. It is a quick, engaging read, and at the end, we feel as if we have known this artist as a friend for a long time
Jim Casper / Lens Culture
"Book's images rich in power, intimacy"
Sunday, March 30, 2008
"Why buy Joanne Leonard's powerful new "Being in Pictures: An Intimate Photo Memoir''? For starters, reading it is like sharing a glass of wine with a smart, thoughtful new friend who has a sharp sense of the absurd; who's decided to open her heart to you about family, relationships, work, loss, love and the many complexities that bind us together - and who happens to be a world-class artist."
Mary Morgan / The Ann Arbor News
"Darkroom's Gone but Not Memories"
September 27, 2007
"At the time, it seemed so common-sensical ... Joanne Leonard, a widely published photographer who's a tenured professor of art and women's studies at the University of Michigan, hadn't used her home darkroom in years.
In the new era of digital cameras and programs even zippier than Photoshop, why would she?
So when workers fixing a crack in her basement floor early this summer said they'd have to remove the darkroom to finish the job, Leonard, 67, didn't think twice."
Read the full article, see photograph...
Michael H. Hodges / The Detroit News
© 2007 Joanne Leonard
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