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Patrick Cariou is an acclaimed French photographer whose work synthesizes documentary, portrait, and fine art image making. As a self-taught anthropologist, he has traveled at lengths to capture worlds closed-off to most. Notably, Cariou's second monograph, Yes Rasta (powerHouse Books, 2000), enters the rarely-seen Jamaican territory of the Rastafarians which he describes as being, "pure madness, and one of the most dangerous places on earth that is not at war."
Cariou's Yes Rasta series recently re-emerged in the headlines as Cariou brought a copyright infringement suit against fellow artist Richard Prince. A federal judge ruled in favor of Cariou as Prince unlawfully appropriated images from the series without seeking Cariou's permission or making any significant alterations. This suit is already a major marker in the course of art history, and Cariou and Prince will return to court in May 2011 to assess the damages.
More of Patrick Cariou's work can be seen in his monographs, Surfers (powerHouse Books, 1997), Trenchtown Love (779, Editions, 2003), and Gypsies (powerHouse Books 2011) highlighted here to be releases in August 2011.
Gypsies
By Patrick Cariou
Foreword by Eddie Brannan
Forthcoming Release: August 2011
With Gypsies, photographer Patrick Cariou retraces in reverse the migration of the Rom people (the Gypsies' own term for themselves) from Western to Eastern Europe, through the Middle East, and ultimately to India, the home of their ancestors. The original journey was an epic, thousand-year odyssey and Cariou labored more than a decade to travel it.
Cariou, a self taught anthropologist and a professional and award-winning documentary, portrait, and fine art photographer, harbors a lifelong, passionate fascination with outlaws and renegades—and an equal ability to earn their trust and respect. In 1997, Cariou's first monograph, Surfers, featured the thousand-yard stares of renowned and revered athletes who had famously chosen the sea over land, movement over stasis; in 2000 he produced Yes Rasta, after vanishing into the Jamaican forests in pursuit of the last members of the true and hidden cult of Rastafarianism; and now, in 2011, with Gypsies, Cariou comes to the end of his travels spent documenting a sparse landscape of itinerant clans living in a world apart for hundreds of years.
The result is a stunning and thought-provoking collection of portraits and landscapes that demonstrate the wide variety of conditions in which the Gypsies of the world find themselves, from citizen to gangster, from the flashy prosperity of the Mercedes-driving Manouches of France to the abject poverty of the Roma of Slovakia. Incredibly, Cariou's images reveal the diversity of ethnic types to be found in this global tribe; from the dark-eyed, ringlet haired stereotypical "Gypsy types" in northern Europe, who seem to display clearly their Indian heritage, to blond, blue-eyed children in Afghanistan, much nearer to the source of origin, who nonetheless have distinctly Caucasian features. These people, scattered far and wide, are a family, bound together by centuries of history and generations of survival.
For more information, please contact Nina Ventura, Publicity Associate
powerHouse Books, 37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel: 212-604-9074 x118, Fax: 212-366-5247, email: nina@powerHouseBooks.com
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