October 28, 2011

libraryjournal:

For Halloween, we’ve got a couple of spooky art books in today’s Xpress Reviews. The images above are from Ossian Brown’s Haunted Air:

This book reproduces a collection of Halloween costume photographs belonging to Brown, an English artist, musician, and member of the bands Coil and Cyclobe. A unique book that’s more artistic experience than source of information, it contains almost entirely black-and-white pictures without titles or captions of people in Halloween garb. The age of the pictures, combined with the strangeness of the homemade costumes therein, creates a freakish and eerie quality. (A brief introduction by offbeat filmmaker David Lynch helps to set the surreal scene.) While the book’s subtitle identifies the time frame of the collection as c. 1875–1955, the pictures are not dated, so the reader only gets an approximate sense of the ages of the pictures based on objects and scenery within the photographs. Based on their visual clues, the images are apparently American. Although it does not contain much factual information, the book is successful as a pictorial glimpse into the tradition of Halloween.

Verdict Recommended for collectors of Americana and everyone with an interest in Halloween.—Eric Linderman, Willoughby-Eastlake P.L., OH

(Source: libraryjournal)

11:02am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z7A58xBDFFlM
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    YES!!
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  5. morerobots reblogged this from libraryjournal and added:
    I love these kind of photos. And costumes. So completely eerie.I was thinking of doing something similar, I have an...
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