Book Description
In
Paris, his quintessential avant-garde book, Moï Ver succeeded in blending dynamic photographic montage with elaborate graphic layouts. Utilizing the double-spread as one unified place, each turn of the page not only surprised but accentuated the charged rhythm built into the book itself. The bulk of information in these pictures documents mundane street activities in the cobblestone-covered Paris of the late 20s. But the method in which Moï Ver chose to present his material, in its kaliedoscopic layering and frenzied repetitiveness, emphasized an experiential approach to picture construction--as if we, the viewers, were walking about, bombarded by noise and reflected light. Within each picture, visual data is spliced with pattern, alluding to a lapse of time, as if they were short film vignettes. Originally published in 1931 by Editions' Jeanne Walter with an introduction by artist and Futurist Fernand Léger, now long out of print and exceptionally rare, this facsimile reproduction of
Paris brings back into circulation one of the seminal photographic books of the century.
The book that introduced Moï Ver to the world is exhilaratingly eccentric, definitely avant-garde. . . . Moï Ver's Paris is a city in motion, hurtling almost out of control. Cobblestone streets, bustling crowds, facades, railway tracks, bridges, the glittering river, and countless monuments shift and shatter here. . . . Moï Ver's version of Paris was eclipsed two years later by the publication of Brassaï's more conventionally seductive Paris de Nuit, but no one has yet matched Moï Ver's vision of the brutal, chaotic, irresistible modern city. --Vince Aletti, from The Book of 101 Books
Edited by Christoph Schifferli.
Introduction by Fernand Léger.
Paperback with specially folded jacket and booklet in a handmade collector's box. Limited edition of 1,000 signed and numbered copies.
About the author
Born in 1904 in Vilnius, Lithuania as Moses Vorobeichic, Moï Ver initially studied painting. In his early 20s he matriculated at the Bauhaus, taking courses with Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Joseph Albers, and left from there to attend the Ecole Photo Ciné in Paris. After producing several unrealized projects for photographic books, necessity led him to begin a career as a reporter. He adopted Zionism in 1934 and immigrated to what was then known as Palestine, returning to painting in 1950. Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic (as he called himself in Palestine) died in 1995.
