Todd Hido2OUTSKIRTS2019HOUSE HUNTINGNAZRAELI PRESS

OUTSKIRTS

2001House Hunting

704

1House Hunting

House Hunting43 x 35 cm26

11House HuntingOutskirts2002

Katya Tylevich/,Outskirts (2002)

TALK & BOOK SIGNING:

Nazraeli Press
20251011
13:00 – 14:3014:30 – 15:30
BOOK EVENT SPACE
Nazraeli Press

Anewly remastered edition of Todd Hidos iconic and long-out-of-print second monograph, Outskirts. As with our new edition of House Hunting released in 2019, we collaborated closely with the artist to achieve the highest possible fidelity reproductions. Printed on heavy weight matte art paper, our new printing of Outskirts surpasses the original printing with more accurate color rendition and subtle nuances in tone and saturation. It will be an important addition to libraries and collections lacking access to the elusive 2002 edition, which itself solidified Hidos position in the art world following on the hels of his groundbreaking first monograph, House Hunting.

If you want to take a photo, you dont knock on someones door to ask permission, Todd Hido says. Ive tagged along on one of his drives, sitting shotgun as he pulls off of main roads to take the unscenic routes, so to speak. It doesnt matter the city were in, because he drives along the anonymous streets, choosing views that could be anywhere in America, and, more importantly, at any time. As always in his process, Hido is in search of something insatiable in that search, he says, even if I cant name exactly what Im looking for.

Published in 2001, House Hunting is, on the one hand, a portrait of a certain America at that specific moment in history: this is an economically downtrodden place, dark and empty homes with the dirty laundry barely packed, or homes with the lights on but radiating no warmth. Simultaneously, this is a portrait of America and specifically, suburban America from any contemporary post-war decade: a raw look at white paint chipping off of picket fences.

Hidos work has echoes of the 70s adolescence he spent in his hometown of Kent, Ohio, a city scarred by the 1970 shooting of four college students by the Ohio Army National Guard during a Vietnam War protest. Then again, the images resonate less for their relationship to the photographer and more for their ability to connect and identify with almost any viewer. These are reserved photographs, overwhelmed with emotion and history, but reluctant to say a word.

I take photographs of houses at night because I wonder about the families inside them, Hido tells me. I wonder about how people live, and the act of taking that photograph is a meditation. House Hunting, therefore, is more question than answer. A rumination without resolution.

It would seem that in order for these pictures to exist, the photographer would need to be a voyeur, but Hido denies secrecy. He says he keeps himself obvious, even when shooting in the dark. When somebody calls the police, he is quick to make the distinction between photographer and criminal. Youre allowed to take pictures in public, Hido says. Its interesting that so many people regard their surroundings as inherently private. Hido heightens that sense of false privacy. Amplifies it, to show the cracks in the edifices.

The scale of House Hunting, 17×13 inches (43×35 cm), initially gave the artist pause when proposed by the publisher. I wasnt sure about it. I didnt want the book to end up crooked or shoved in someones bookshelf. Instead, the scale of the book demands a confrontation with its 26 carefully selected photographs, edited by Hido himself, a practice he insists on with each of his books. In so deliberately paring down the contents of House Hunting, Hido establishes how critical each photograph is in meaning and function. The physical experience of the photographs reinforces the emotional. In 2002, therefore, Outskirts was published as the companion book to House Hunting with the same size, shape, and page count.

Katya Tylevich (arts and fiction writer), from Outskirts (2002)