With a playful title and a wealth of rich content, Sorry, No Pictures by Meggan Gould speaks potently about the desires, tropes, failures and mystique embedded within the medium of photography.
Gould opens the book with an evocative image of a hand holding out a photo envelope, displaying the text, “Sorry No Pictures.” We see the phrase boldly featured in red print on a haphazardly-placed sticker, its declaration and automation reinforcing the commonality of such camera-user error. The image is simple and beautiful. The light washes over and beyond the envelope, falling onto a subtle yellow background creating a warm, comforting gradient that seems to not only accept the implied failure, but revel in the reinstatement of potential in the unknown images. Such apparent physical absence of photographs implies the presence of the “retinalgravure,” as Gould dubs – the image of the mind’s eye, perhaps better connected to memory and experience in three dimensions than a photographic rendering. In her section, “One Wonders If One Should Want The Picture,” Gould states “(this) is why photography surprises me. To have wanted the images might mean more than having them”(7). Gould’s gesture in creating a photograph of this empty envelope, the tangentially connected, yet insignificant photographic object, brings to light the fickle nature of the medium in a humorous and candid manner.
Throughout the book, Gould exercises both a keen celebration of and clear disruption to photography’s rigid structures, as evidenced perhaps most clearly through her tales of teaching, which include amusing anecdotes, “semantic quibbling”(28) and notes-to-self. Make no mistake, Meggan Gould loves photography and teaching visual strategies. She delights in the medium’s materiality and its potential; but she is familiar with its many failings, and finds more conceptual depth in expressing its hypocrisies, complications, and ambiguities than in accepting its long-romanticized version wholesale. As such, the book is a journey into the inherent complexities of photographic mechanism and assertion. Through a series of tightly-edited sections – musings might be a better word – Gould creates a rhythm that integrates well-crafted, captivating text paired with conceptually-provoking images. The photographs and text elevate one another, and Gould’s various aesthetic interests throughout her career are as much a testament to her flexibility as a visual artist as to her talent in smartly shifting context. In the section “But How Far Can the Eye See?” Gould writes, “I offer you these slippery photos. Almost nothings, barely somethings. Ambiguous precision. Precise ambiguity”(36).
While there are indeed pictures in the book, and excellent ones at that, Gould’s writing proves to be an equally compelling element. Throughout the book, she weaves together a thoughtful and cogent narrative touching on themes of attachment/detachment, movement/stasis, curiosity, and performance. Non-linear and poetic, her writing style is wholly engaging. She writes about personal experiences and provides a wide variety of access points to her viewer through her self-deprecation, honesty, and lyrical utilization of reference material. The book somehow manages to be at once scholarly and personal, astute and modest, and is able to do so in a way that consistently makes room for its audience. Gould writes in a manner that sometimes feels as if her ideas are unfolding in real time, as though we, reader (and perhaps voyeur), are part of her realizations within the moment. Her style is refreshing and inviting, and she packs an immense amount of insightful content for photography enthusiasts of all kinds into 156 pages.
For me, the sign of an outstanding artist book lies in enjoying it from start to finish, as well as finding value in flipping to any random page. You will not be disappointed with any approach to the content within Sorry, No Pictures, nor will you be dismayed with its perfect handheld size and weight, or its smooth, 18% neutral grey cover (this can’t be a coincidence, can it?!). The book also seems to reject traditional categories, a notion that is fitting for Gould’s thesis. Is it a photo book? An artist manifesto? A theoretical undertaking? A grey card? It’s whatever the hell you need it to be when you pick it up. I truly think there is something for everyone waiting in Sorry ,No Pictures.
Grab a copy and unpack the content for yourself!
Details:
• Published May 2021
• 9x6 inches
• Softcover with French flaps
• 156 pages
• 65 pages
• 2nd printing (200, signed): $30
