Park Cities
Magali Reus
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2021, 336 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 207 × 27.5 cm, English
Price: €28

Magali Reus’ new photographic series, Knaves documents an array of mushrooms in headshot-like close up. As though in an al fresco portrait studio, the fungi are posed against backdrops of colourful vintage t-shirts – synthetic intrusions into the natural landscape.

This artist book sets images from the series within the sepia-tinted pages of a 1990s telephone directory for Park Cities – an area of Dallas whose name acts as shorthand for the way in which urban design domesticates nature for ease of human use.

Novelist, Kathryn Scanlan’s text zooms in on a series of fleeting quotidian dramas, mobilising a cast of evocatively named characters that, like Reus’ fungal protagonists, bloom and then disappear.

#2021 #magalireus #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig