As one of the first American photographers to set foot on Japanese soil at the end of World War II--even before Japan had officially surrendered--John Swope experienced and recorded a critical, peculiar and fragile moment in the history of the East and of a war-torn world. His powerful photo essay is complemented here, as he had hoped it would be one day, by excerpts from the 144-page letter he wrote to his wife, the actress Dorothy McGuire, during the three weeks he spent traveling with an elite team of Edward Steichen Naval photographers tapped to document the release of Allied prisoners of war. Swope went far beyond his official duties to convey the impact of World War II on the local population and the land, as well as the freed soldiers. Having visited Japan 15 years before, as a young man, he had a better sense than some of his colleagues of just what had been destroyed, and he struggled with it. His letter describes both his experiences and his emotional reactions to all that he saw; his photographs, together with those words, convey a poignant, highly personal view of this world in limbo, expressing a great sense of humanity and a profound sensitivity for the people on both sides of the conflict. A Letter from Japan presents 114 color plates, some of which, by way of contrast and background, cover Swope's work as a Hollywood photographer, his Life magazine career and his international travels from the 1930s to the 1970s.

A Letter from Japan: The Photographs of John Swope

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

Steidl/UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Christian Marclay

It is sound--and our culturally determined reactions to it--that forms the basis of Christian Marclay's genre- and media-crossing art. Fascinated by the translation of the audible into the visual, the theme that informs all of his work is the space between what we hear and what we see. Telephone conversation, movies, reviews of musical performances, compact discs and album covers have all provided sources of inspiration for his work. This volume looks at the diverse body of work that Marclay has created from 1980 to the present, exploring it within the various contexts of music, art history and popular culture in which it exists. Twenty years of Marclay's sculpture, collage, installation, photography and video are represented. Essayists include Russell Ferguson, UCLA Hammer Museum chief curator and the Marclay exhibition curator; Miwon Kwon, University of California, Los Angeles professor of art history; Douglas Kahn, professor of technocultural studies at the University of California, Davis and a leading scholar of avant-garde music; and Alan Licht, musician and sometime Marclay collaborator. The definitive volume on one of today's most influential artists. Edited by Russell Ferguson.

Kahn, Douglas

Kwon, Miwon

Licht, Alan

Marclay, Christian

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