Men in Suits, a new book by Rosamond Casey
An artist offspring of the Washington power-scene returns with her camera to record her impressions of the current environment
Raised by men in suits, (father, uncle, step father, grandfather) through her childhood in Washington DC, the artist returns home decades later to see what’s going on. What are they doing up there? Not doing? Undoing?
Carrying a point-and-shoot in her pocket, Rosamond Casey wanders all over Capitol Hill, following them everywhere they walk, through the streets, in and out of restaurants, hotel lobbies, the senate buildings, poking into offices and chambers in order to capture them as they move about. The book contains hand-pulled photo reproductions of ten mixed media photo/ paintings averaging 48” x 36” in size which the artist made from the snapshots taken on the Hill that day.
We begin the visual query with a piece called “Initiation”, moving on to “Chinese Whispers”, “House of Deliberation”, “Powerstroke: Act one”, “After Thought”, “The Double Tree Hotel Massacre”, “the Passion”, “What Lurked Beneath the Thing he Would Have Said”, “The Flagellation”; and finally in a sort of prayer for redemption, “Enter the Blue Dawn”. The ten images allude indirectly to a Stations of the Cross journey as the artist attempts to piece together an answer to the question, “What happens to these men in suits during this passage through the rock-hard halls of power?”
The clamshell box that holds the book is bound in Versace pinstripe wool with solid brass spine engraved with the title of the work.The interior lining is a fleshy pink silk on the verso and scarlet red on the verso tray. The book is bound in brass channel, the samematerial used to frame the photo/paintings depicted in the book. The box measures 19” x 14”. One of 25 copies.
Related items: Catalogue 36 - Summer 2008, Original Prints, Photographs & Portfolios, The New Technology, Rosamond Casey