Monumental Moments

First edition of Monumental Moments by Erik Lieber (2024)

First impression 

Medium format paperback in new condition 

Comes with a dust jacket

About

The way Monumental Moments is composed is not an attempt to reconstruct the life of this unknown Japanese family. Nor is it an attempt at anecdotal narrative. To what end? And for whom? Each picture looks like an ordinary family snapshot. But the more the collection grew, the more questions it raised. It was precisely in this overwhelming quantity of anonymous portraits that it became clear how much remained invisible and elusive. What is happening here? Where does it come from? Why all the repetition and duplication? What are we actually looking at? It stimulates the imagination. Two themes in particular contribute to this: the endless series of “self-image portraits” And the apparent fate of these snapshots, imbued with so much personal attention, only to end up out on the curb. Monumental Moments evokes associations and questions about the transience of self-images. Is this perhaps a memento mori?