books
[See music/image video link below.]
Light: On the South Side (Numero Group, 2009)
“There is something extremely poignant about these pictures: there comes a point where the transience of the laughter and the music, the booze and the cigarettes and the drugs, pushes us into a contemplation of the mortality of the participants, and then on to our own. And life has always been shorter for the inhabitants of the South Side, too—at the time these pictures were taken, the average black male would just about see his sixtieth birthday, but not much beyond that. Carpe diem means that little bit more when the dies are in shorter supply. This is a special book, about one tiny corner of the world over a handful of evenings a long time ago; but that tiny corner of the world has, for decades now, meant a great deal to an awful lot of people scattered all over the world.”
-- Nick Hornby
“It was a living self-contained theater.” That’s how Michael Abramson described his years photographing Peppers Hideout, Perv’s House, the High Chaparral, the Patio Lounge, and the Showcase Lounge on Chicago’s South Side in the 1970s.
Enter Patricia Smith, a poet who grew up not far from these South Side clubs. She took a look at Abramson’s photos nearly four decades later and brought his night world back to life. “These fiercely breathing visuals are a last link,” she says, “to the unpredictable, blade-edged and relentlessly funky city I once knew.” Her words and his pictures open the doors and give us a front-row (or a back-row . . . even better) seat to a time and place long gone.
So: Watch. Listen.
Men Photographing Women in the 70s (Hoxton Mini Press, 2018)
Abramson’s secret ‘Camera Night’ photos have finally seen the light of day via the UK’s Hoxton Mini Press with this year’s new release in time for a naughty stocking stuffer. Funny, twisted, compelling, sometimes shocking - a ritual of pre-internet porn times, these unique images of the male gaze in full swing is like nothing else, with a special insightful foreword by Dr Midge Wilson. Available online and at bookstores where creative Hoxton books are sold.
Chicago has produced some of the most important photographers of our time but has never before has their work been featured in a single book. This collection of 225 stunning images by the city’s most revered photographers illustrate the enduring and endearing aspects of Chicago, its people and landscapes from the Loop to its vast array of neighborhoods. Abramson’s photo of Perv’s Dance Hall can be found on p. 132
Chicago Classic Photos (2017) City Files Press, Evanston, IL.
This book catalogs the Blue Sky Gallery’s exhibit photos from 2017 to 2019. Michael’s work is featured on pp. 4-9.
Blue Sky Gallery 2017-2018 / 2018-2019 (2019) Blue Sky Printing, Portland, Oregon.
The graduate M.S. degree photography program in the School of Design (of the Illinois Institute of Technology) produced some of the most creative and innovative photographers of the second half of the 20th Century. This book catalogs its notable graduates, including Michael Abramson whose 1976 photograph entitled Pepper’s Hideout is featured on p, 26.
A Lasting Vision: Photographs from the Institute of Design: 1970 – 2001 (2015) IIT Press, Chicago, IL