{"product_id":"9783033113602","title":"The Process","description":"Georg Gatsas (b. 1978, Switzerland) is an artist who uses still and moving photography to map\nthe intersections between creativity, location, memory, and focus. A steadfast participant in\nDIY and underground creative communities, he has spent his life unveiling the connections that\nbind artists across genre, generation, and identity. Solo exhibitions of his work have been\nmounted by Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland; The Swiss Institute, New York; and JUBG,\nCologne. His work has appeared in The Wire, zweikommasieben, and ANP Quarterly, and\nmonographs dedicated to Georg’s photography have been published by Nieves (Switzerland)\nand Loose Joints (France and UK).\nSpanning 2002 - 2007, The Process was Georg’s first major series, documenting five years of\nlife in New York City. It’s an alienating span of time, bookended by September 11 on one side\nand the emergence of the smartphone on the other. The terrified, reactionary America of these\nfive years craved comfort and safety, but a spiky, risky underground coalesced in that creative\ndead zone. In Georg’s words, “There was a sense of most of the world not understanding. And\nthis is an opportunity.” The predominant culture’s patriotism and assuredness left a lot of\nunsupervised space for individuals interested in addressing fear and danger. It sometimes felt\nas if entire city blocks had been abandoned, the remnants corrupted and rebuilt by bands and\nartists, by concerts and exhibitions with small, dedicated audiences. This was the terrain of The\nProcess.\nGeorg sought out the people wandering this terrain, and made portrait of them: Genesis\nP-Orridge, Black Dice, Antipop Consortium, Kembra Pfahler, Ira Cohen and Stephonik Youth.\nThese are not artists bound together by generation or gesture, rather they are connected\n\nthrough their dedication and intention. They share a sense of refusal, and an ability to see the\nopportunity in not being understood, in not being recuperable. Everyone in these photos is on\nedge, tense and tightly-wound. Their faces display the same resistance that you hear in their\nsongs and read in their words. Georg matched their focus and ruthlessness in his photographs.\nThe direct eye contact is consistent. The camera’s unobstructed harshness is consistent. Even\nthe non-portrait photos—a cat-filled alley or an empty parking lot—ask the same questions\nabout belonging, about looking away. About the potential of a broken umbrella, or the everyday\nad hoc approaches to evading systemic annihilation.\nThe Process is the first book issued by light-years, the independent label founded by Caterina\nBarbieri in 2021. Light-years is known best for densely-crafted, labyrinthine compositions, and\nThe Process is no exception. Alongside the large format reproductions of photographs, the\nbook presents a vast collection of record covers, garments, correspondence, and ephemera\nfrom Georg’s personal archive. Alternating between Georg’s portraits, these archival spreads\nare initially obscured from view through the use of an antiquated printing technique which\nleaves the top edge of the book uncut. The folded gathering at the top edge of each page must\nbe sliced with a sharp edge to reveal the book in its entirety, a practice entirely familiar to 19th\ncentury readers, but nearly forgotten today. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé rejoiced in the\nprocess of separating pages with a blade, noting the action was the only way to introduce\nmovement to a book. In his 1895 essay The Book: A Spiritual Instrument, Mallarmé wrote that\nthe uncut foldings “invite the kind of sacrifice that made the red edges of ancient tomes bleed;\nI mean that they invite the paper-knife, which stakes our claims to possession of the book.”\nThis design ultimately makes clear the intent of The Process, and of Georg’s practice as a\nwhole. Reflecting on this incipient body of work decades after its completion, Georg observed,\n“You can see I just started.” It sounds like an admission that he’d only just begun using the\ncamera in those years, but it can be reframed as an affirmation, an understanding that he\njumped in and used the camera without hesitation. That he didn’t fret, didn’t strategize. That\nmovement must be introduced, even blood, but this dedication and resistance is within reach\nfor anyone with the will to reach out for it, to stake the claim.","brand":"light-years","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":65531720761693,"sku":null,"price":27.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1041\/3893\/2573\/files\/9783033113602_3216ca06-ae95-4b8c-964a-01c4445dc9db.png?v=1789020923","url":"https:\/\/shop.gazellebookservices.co.uk\/products\/9783033113602","provider":"Gazelle Book Services","version":"1.0","type":"link"}