Lifelong chronicler of humanity throughout the furthest reaches of the world, David Katzenstein’s forty-nine-year artistic journey through thirty-seven countries is thoughtfully curated into
Distant Journeys (Hirmer Publishers / distributed by University of Chicago Press). Drawn from an exhaustive body of work developed by Katzenstein, the 120 duo-tone images taken between 1974 and 2023 are thoughtfully accompanied by excerpts from The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles.
Steeped in documentary and reportage photography tradition, Katzenstein imbues his work with immediacy, emotional engagement, and a deep respect for his subjects. Imploring the viewer to join him on his journeys, his first-hand experience of cultures and peoples is shared with the audience as though they are present at the scene. Using subject, light, and composition to create visual dynamism, he sets the stage for the viewer to be in the moment with him. His goal is to allow viewers to experience a scene through his eyes.
In Distant Journeys, writer and educator Susanna Moore points to the potential irony of the title: these journeys are not distant but intimate. She notes that the construction of Katzenstein’s photographs “…while not arranged or designed, is far from accidental. Split between the discrete and the continuous (like time itself), the images make it seem as if one were in motion, viewing humans reduced to themselves in a solemn collision of past and present.”
In 2018, Katzenstein formed a nonprofit organization, The Human Experience, whose mission is to create and mount exhibitions of photographs depicting the human experience. The most recent project is the documenting and archiving of the architect of the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard Rustin’s extraordinary record of public and personal life.
Katzenstein has spent his career traveling the world extensively, creating narrative imagery for fine art exhibitions, global corporate giants, and philanthropic organizations. He was a contributor to Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and Conde Nast’s Traveler, worked on numerous music projects for Sony Music, and completed both national and worldwide campaigns for Fortune 100 companies, including Hewlett Packard, American Express, AES and Stolichnaya.
This is his second title, following Ritual, released in 2022, which documented different religious and non-secular rituals and pilgrimages captured by the artist throughout his worldwide travels.
David Katzenstein
Distant Journeys
Introduction by Susanna Moore
Excerpts from Paul Bowles’s
The Sheltering Sky (1949)
Hirmer Publishers, Hardcover
US$ 60 / EU 59 / UK £50
184 pages
9.45 x 12.6 in.
24 x 32 cm
120 duotone photographs
ISBN-13: 9783777443683
ISBN-10: 3777443689
Order: https://www.hirmerverlag.de/uk/titel-88-3/david_katzenstein-2596/
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
© David Katzenstein: Distant Journeys
