Bill Henson: Lux et Nox

Australian artist Bill Henson is a passionate and visionary explorer of twilight zones, of the ambiguous spaces that exist between day and night, nature and civilization, youth and adulthood, male and female. His photographs of landscapes at dusk, of the industrial no-man's land that lies on the outskirts of our cities, and of androgynous girls and boys adrift in the nocturnal turmoil of adolescence are painterly tableaux that continue the tradition of romantic literature and painting in our post-industrial age. The rich chiaroscuro, the oscillating light, and the masterful composition of his photographs map enigmatic states that escape rationalism's iron grip, providing a much-needed antidote to a culture that increasingly looses itself in a numbing vortex of blinking screens and glittering surfaces. Were it not for Henson's primary, almost devotional need to elicit empathy for his troubled human subjects, there's a feeling that nothing would prevent the black in his photographs from completely absorbing his attention and extinguishing his work. --Dennis Cooper Hardcover, 16.5 x 12 inches, 192 pages, 125 color images.