John Gossage: The Pond

When I shared my BOW with my peer led hangout group last week, one of my colleagues suggested that I look at John Gossage's work, The Pond.

Wikipedia tells us that John Gossage is an American photographer who is renowned for his artists books and uses his photographs to explore parts of the urban environment that are under-recognised such as abandoned tracts of land, debris, refuse and graffiti - edgelands to use current terminology.  Aperture website tells us that The Pond was groundbreaking when it was first published in 1985.  Today its subject matter would be commonplace.  It comprises images of a pond situated in a scruffy piece of edgelands woodland, a foil to Thoreau's Walden (Aperture 2017).  Rather than grand landscape in the tradition of Ansel Adams, we are told, instead, they reveal reality on the border between nature and humankind - (nature and culture?).  Robert Adams describes the work as believable because it reveals the darker side of man while it also demonstrates Gossage's passion for what remains of nature (Adams, 2013).  Adam's describes the book as a work of irony which focuses on the ugliness of man's despoliation of the environment, but  Americans at the time do not yet appreciate what they have done (Adams, 2013).  The same criticism could be levelled at many in this country.

Gossage's work is very different to my own with a different purpose but it does portray a walk around a piece of woodland (containing a pond).  I have, at times, in my current BOW turned my camera on man's carelessness on my journeys through woodland, but that is not currently my theme.  Gossage's work is also in monochrome whereas mine is in colour.  The book is unusual for its time in that it contains no image on the cover, merely the title.  Despite the differences in work there are images of paths through his wood that are similar to ones I have taken and I think in particular of one very narrow path leading into the distance which is also similar to one of Richard Long's.  A couple of paths disappearing into vegetation would also work in my current work.  The book is arranged so that there is an image on the right hand page with a blank page on the left.  There are no captions.

A video of the book can be seen here.

Adams, R. (2013) Robert Adams on John Gossage's 'The Pond' [online] ASX. Available from: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/02/john-gossage-john-gossages-the-pond-1986.html [Accessed 07/02/17]

Aperture (2017) John Gossage - The Pond [online] Aperture. Available from: http://aperture.org/shop/john-gossage-the-pond-book/ [Accessed 07/02/17]

Wikipedia (2016) John Gossage [online] Wikipedia. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gossage [Accessed 07.02.17]