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The Locusts (last copy)

by Jesse Lenz

Photographs: Jesse Lenz

Publisher: Charcoal Press

144 pages

Year: 2020

ISBN: 978-0-578-67947-1

Comments: Embossed linen with tip-in image, 9.75 x 12.25 inches

The Locusts is the first monograph by photographer and publisher Jesse Lenz. His images transport the reader to rural Ohio where his children run wild in the fields, build forts in the attic, and fall asleep surrounded by lightsabers and superheroes. The microcosmic worlds of plants, insects, animals, and children create a brooding landscape where dichotomies of nature play out in front of his growing family. The backyard becomes a labyrinth of passages as the children experience the cycles of birth and death in the changing seasons. The Locusts depicts a world in which beautiful and terrible things will happen, but offers grace and healing within the brokenness and imperfection of life.

Jesse Lenz (1988, Montana) is a self-taught photographer and multidisciplinary artist. As an illustrator he has created images for the most well-respected publications around the world, including TIME, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many others. He is the founder and director of Charcoal Book Club and the Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review. From 2011-2018 he also co-founded and published The Collective Quarterly and The Coyote Journal. He lives on a farm in rural Ohio.

In the Press:
Washington Post
Conscientious Photography Magazine
Photobookstore
British Journal of Photography
Juxtapoz
Booooooom
Hero
Blind

Photo-Eye – Best Photobook of 2020: Andrea Modica
Photo-Eye – Best Photobook of 2020: Brad Zellar

Photobookstore.uk - Best Photobook of 2020: Ed Templeton
Photobookstore.uk - Best Photobook of 2020: Tim Carpenter
Photobookstore.uk - Best Photobook of 2020: Robin Titchener

What People are Saying:

“The Locusts a wonderful, very personal work, almost an elegy. The best thing, perhaps, is that it rings true and authentic. All feels completely and truly observed. Details from life, not of theory. Perhaps this holds the risk of 'old fashioned', but 'true to life' is still, to my mind, the higher accomplishment. Jesse has made a splendid book, the veracity of which will only grow on you. A well know photographer - so I was told later - wrote a very nice sentence in a book of comments from a show of mine back in 1971, ‘I’m glad we come to this place: this is the way a man feels when he sees.’ that’s the spirit and the heart of what I have to say.” - Emmet Gowin

"I can't think of a single piece of art that has so wholly transported me back to a thin, ineffable place in my increasingly dissolving memory. That thin place is childhood, a childhood shot full of shattering light, bewildering wonder, and the darkest enchantments. Jesse Lenz does a masterful job of putting his messages in your reach rather than in your lap. And though The Locusts is ultimately a liminal tour of the universal terrarium of nature and childhood, this is also, after all, the 21st century, and nostalgia and innocence provide no safe haven; you're always hyper aware that beyond every frame of every photo, the heartbreaking locusts of progress and desecration are out there somewhere, massing inexorably in the darkness beyond the cardboard fortresses and the fields." - Brad Zellar

“With a profoundly tender eye and an unerring acuity of detail, The Locusts begs us back into the other-world of childhood and its heroes - here where worms and bugs and giant pumpkins reign, and where the earthly hints of planetary. The animals are everywhere and so is love and so is presence (or a being-in). Here, time flows quietly. Everything is still to come, and everything has been already or is occurring while we shift the pages. With heart-breaking honesty the book returns us to a place of memory and re-imagining where we can see and feel and linger. While celebrating children and their worlds, Locusts reminds of this - that while life is, life goes away.” - Katrin Koenning

“It is tender and sweet, something that I think we need a lot more of right now in the world. It immediately brings me back to my days in Ohio, running through the woods and the cornfields without concern, like the children in this book do. It is exciting that wonder and freedom still exist and prevail.” - Todd Hido

“Oddly ethereal, turning the pages is like moving through tall grass at dusk, a mix of trepidation and wonder. “ - Jack Woody

"In The Locusts, Jesse Lenz has created an enchanted country harnessed by the reality of the larger world. It’s a harsh reminder that this place moves on without us—earth’s cruel and objective life weighed against the gravity of our own existence.” - Matthew Genitempo

“I was fortunate to come across this work in its embryonic stages. As Jesse was standing right next to me, I recall leafing endlessly through a stack of silver gelatin prints. The work silenced me, perhaps an uneasy reaction for the author to take. But in truth, what I just saw possessed an acute sense of fragility that was not mere preciousness, rather it spoke to the veracity of life itself. The Locusts contains a great deal of pictures of the author’s children and their surroundings. Yet the book never falls into a kind of banal sentimentalism. Jesse refuses to single out or prefer any one element of the work’s content. In this book, hideousness and beauty are contained within each other to subtly preserve the wholeness of life itself, in which harmony and tension are unified.” - Igor Posner

“In his absorbing debut monograph, Jesse Lenz expertly crafts a grainy dreamscape that beautifully reveals the wonder of childhood and life's painful lessons. “ - Bryan Schutmaat

“Death hovers always nearby in The Locusts. It is the plain acceptance of finitude – and the equally strong intuition that life will out – that makes the quiet joys of this book all the sweeter. “ - Tim Carpenter

“The Locusts is a tremendous achievement - it transported me to my own childhood in the woods, learning about death and rebirth, discovering that the world is full of pain and magic and and sweet smells and stinging insects. On top of that, the production is really exquisite - the best black-and-white printing I've seen in quite awhile.” - Ben Brody

“The Locusts is original, beautiful, moving and so smart.” - Andrea Modica

“The Locusts is Lenz’s debut photobook, and is quite simply one of the most beautiful releases of the year. Not only visually, but also in terms of its production. Lush thick inks rest on warm textured paper, the light sheen of the images contrasting with the matt of the stock beneath it. The cloth covered boards with tipped in image complete this flawlessly elegant design. Some artists wait eons to see their work presented in such a way. It is to Lenz’s credit that he has taken his time and been able to present his first book to the world on his own terms. Sensitivity rendered in monochrome, Lenz’s photography manages to be both of its time and yet timeless.” - Robin Titchener

“Ethereal, tender and ultimately affirming. The Locusts is also the most finely crafted book I’ve held in a long time.” - Raymond Meeks

“The scenes look very surreal. The pictures were taken with a sympathetic and intimate eye. The perspective of the people and the landscapes are incredibly exquisite.” - Takayuki Ishii, Taka Ishii gallery

“The Locusts for sure is an impressive debut book by a photographer who I’m sure we’re going to see and hear a lot more of in the future.” - Jörg Colberg

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