Vanishing Presence. Exhibition catalog edited by Eugeneia Parry Janis, Max Kozloff, and Adam D. Weinberg.

Walker Art Center/Rizzoli, 1989.  First edition, first printing. 190 pages. Hardcover, near fine with good protected dust jacket with a crimp and tear repaired internally with archival mending tape. Presents the work of twelve contemporary photographers who have experimented with the creative use of blurred and overlapped images, and under and over overexposures.  Photographers: Dieter Appelt; Bernhard Blume; Mary Beth Edelson; Joseph Jachna; William Klein; Ralph Eugene Meatyard; Duane Michals; Lucas Samara; Michael Snow; Patrick Tosani; Anne Turyn; and Francesca Woodman.  Summary: 

Vanishing Presence is the catalog published in conjunction with a 1989 nationally circulated exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The 189-page book gathers essays and critical texts by the editors—Parry Janis, Kozloff, and Weinberg—with a foreword by Martin Friedman, framing the themes explored in the exhibition.

The focus of the catalog (and the exhibition it documents) is on photography that challenges conventional expectations of the medium—work that deliberately experiments with exposure, blurring, overlays, and other photographic effects that make images seem elusive, ambiguous, or “vanishing.” It brings together the work of twelve contemporary photographers whose images stretch the perceptual and conceptual boundaries of photography, stimulating viewers to reconsider how the camera records time, presence, and absence.

Among the artists featured are Dieter Appelt, Bernhard Blume, Mary Beth Edelson, Joseph Jachna, William Klein, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Duane Michals, Lucas Samaras, Michael Snow, Patrick Tosani, Anne Turyn, and Francesca Woodman, offering a broad spectrum of creative approaches across different styles and sensibilities.

Through critical essays and richly illustrated plates, Vanishing Presence examines how photography can evoke absence, ambiguity, memory, and the passage of time, pushing beyond documentary clarity toward more elusive visual experiences. This catalog is both a reflection on the medium’s expressive possibilities and a record of an exhibition that highlighted photography’s experimental edge in the late 20th century.