About this Item
First edition, first printing. Signed in ink opposite the title page by Burke (under his self-portrait), with his personal 'Actual Signature' stamp added. Burke also hand-stamped this copy with 6 additional text stamps on page 115 of the book, under video still images from "Divorce Video." Hardcover. Photographically illustrated laminated paper-covered boards, no dust jacket as issued. 118 pp., with 95 duotone and numerous color reproductions, including two 2-page gatefolds (photograph, video stills, journal entries, film stills and other illustrations, from Burke's trips to Cambodia since 1982). 11-1/4 x 8-7/8 inches. This first edition was limited to 5000 hardbound copies. New (opened only for signature). Burke designed the book entirely in the offset printing medium, without computer resources. Also included with the book is a booklet 16-page journal/book insert (8 1/8 x 5 3/8 inches) with illustrations of samples from Burke's personal journals, and including 11 black and white reproductions of Polaroid prints. From the publisher: "Mine Fields (a sequel to Bill Burke's justly famous I Want to Take Picture), is Burke's scrapbook of his life and his pursuit of the history and daily life of Cambodia. Part adventure story, part personal confession, part travelogue, and always fascinating, Burke's negotiation of the mine fields of divorce and war is a compelling collage of photographs, found objects, stories, and the contrast between glorious ancient temples and the horrors of war and genocide." About Bill Burke: Since the early 1980s, Bill Burke has photographed extensively in Southeast Asia, focusing primarily in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Burke's haunting and layered examination of the landscape and people is informed by the collective political and social conscience galvanized by the United States' lengthy occupation and annihilation of these regions before, during, and after the Vietnam War. His lifelong desire to connect personally and viscerally to the people he meets sets his work in an altogether separate category from most artists who photograph outside their circumscribed "experience." Neither overtly political nor proscriptive, Burke's work instead recognizes the personal is indeed political. Gone are the cultural stereotypes we have long seen in images of Southeast Asia. Instead we are able to experience the intensity of the individual through Bill Burke's idiosyncratic and careful observation. He obliterates the notion that the "documentary photograph" is a vehicle for "truth" and compellingly shows the viewer that it is always a form of personal or political propaganda. 'I Want to Take Picture' (originally published by Nexus Press in 1987) is a combination artist book and 'travelogue.' It is considered by many to be one of the very best, disturbing and important books in the history of photography. From Bill Burke (1987): "Each day, I was thinking about practicality, is my pass in order, how do I get there, who do I meet that will get me through. The philosophical thoughts came later. When I realized that I had access to the camps and could see the Khmer Rouge, it was like being able to see the Devil. It seamed to be an incredible opportunity." From an interview with Bill Burke by Willis Hartshorn (New York City, June 1987): "Hartshorn: 'Do you find it problematic that in a politically savage environment your pictures are often ambiguous as to who's good and who's bad?' Burke: 'I have no problem with ambiguity. Again, all the information is filtered, everything I know about it is secondhand. I know what the refugees at the border say and what books say. I heard how bad the Khmer Rouge were, and then as I read more I found out the other people had been bad too. The people who were victims at one time were victimizing others at another time. There are two sides, the information is slanted, and it's good that people understand that. . . I would like things to be spelled out clearly so I wouldn't have to think about.
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