 | |
List Price: $60.00 | | Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Salesrank: 1975110
|
| Our Price: $7.96 |
| Used Price: $5.98 |
|
| Media: Hardcover |
|
Editorial Review:
One of the leading photographers of our age journeys to Christian communities around the world and, in a stunning book that blends his thoughtful observations with 173 dramatic black-and-white images, produces a magnificent photographic testimony to what it means to be a Christian at the dawn of the third millennium.
Having left his native Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which he covered with great fascination and apprehension, Abbas now devotes much of his energies to probing explorations of religion, seeking to understand why and how religious passion grows. His travels around the world have produced several international bestsellers. This latest book focuses on Christian communities in such diverse places as Jerusalem, Ulster, Lourdes, Mexico, Mali, Cuba, Russia, and the United States, as he looks at modern Christianity from the perspectives of politics, rituals, spirituality, and civilization.
ABBAS is an acclaimed photographer, best-selling author, and member of the Magnum Agency in Paris. He has exhibited his work in museums and galleries in Teheran, London, and Paris, where he now lives.
173 black-and-white photographs, 93/4 x 121/2"
Faces of Christianity: A Photographic Journey Reviews:
AN UNFINISHED PROJECT... 
2001-07-09 - Some photos are memorable and give honour to the talented photographer but there does not seem to be any integrity at all, the book is nothing more than a collection of photographic notes taken in different lands. A number of images have nothing to do with christianity at all. The camera is often more excited about sects and cults. Very subjective views and written statements, too shallow for such a serious subject. A project like this should take a lifetime to complete...
A Sort of Christianity
2001-01-18 - There are some marvelous pictures in this book. The book is large and beautifully printed. It has the weight of talent , time and subject material that makes it a worthy item to have in one's photo collection. I would, however, make an important caveat for those who are looking for a faithful depiction of the faces of Christianity as it exists around the world. They will not find it in this book. It is more of an exploration of "Christianity", and the areas of politics, culture and spirituality that have grown up around it, oftentimes in a way that the author jarringly admits has little to do with actual Christian faith. This leaves the viewer wondering if the unusual or the extreme depicted are Christian or if they just happened to make for interesting pictures. That struck me as disingenous. Adding to the confusion were pictures of Jews, Muslims, Russian Communists, etc.. Personally, after viewing some of the sensational imagery of Santeria in Cuba (which Abbas himself in the book notes acknowledges is a "cult"), I had to wonder if the Christian faith as expressed around the world was being given true justice, which one would expect after five years. The peculiar introduction seems to indicate that a desire to "even the score" after his Islam project was a consideration at work. In the end, I see the book as a fascinating personal project in which a photographer was exploring his own ideas about a world religion, but in the end offered up confusing notions of the faith to match the confused notions of some he was photographing. On a purely visual level, however, it is stunning.
