MUELLNER, Nicholas
Lacuna Park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography

Lacuna Park is a collection of written and visual essays that intertwine personal accounts, historical and contemporary criticism, fictional narrative, and philosophical inquiry to ask: what is existentially at stake in the making and viewing of photographs? Created between 2009 and 2019, these works reflect a decade of epochal shift in the technologies and contexts of image-making. Witnessing the growth of smartphones and the ascendance of social media, and their dramatic transformations to visual and social culture, this innovative collection traces that evolution through Muellner’s idiosyncratically emotional, humorous and melancholic modes. His investigations range from the scholarly to the confessional, the canonical to the vernacular, and across culture and time. Above all, these critical and philosophical works never abandon the position of the photographer: that person who marks their place in the world – as lover, citizen, artist and witness – by the optical device they hold in their hands.

In addition to four new and previously unpublished essays, the collection includes selections published in now out-of-print and hard-to-find works, including the complete republication of Muellner’s 2009 book, The Photograph Commands Indifference.

[publisher's note]

Published by SPBH, 2019
Essays / Photography