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ISBN 978-1-59005-385-0
Hardcover, Slipcased, 12 x 15, 56 pages, 51 duotone plates
Limited edition of 350 numbered and signed copies.

*NOTE: SPECIAL EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE HERE >

The images in Steve Kahn’s enigmatic The Hollywood Suites were all made in run-down apartments between the years 1974 and 1976. Alternately provocative and haunting, they were the subject of solo exhibitions on the West Coast and in Europe during that decade and included in noted group exhibitions such as Exposing: Photographic Definitions at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in 1976 and The Altered Photograph at P.S. 1 in New York in 1979.

The series divides into two groups of pictures. The Hollywood Suites (nudes) features sexually charged pictures of young women, often partially clad and sometimes cropped. In The Hollywood Suites (mirrors, windows and doors), Kahn concentrated on architectural interiors, making arresting use of windows and doors. The images themselves are grainy and offer an unnaturally sharp contrast between darks and lights. Select examples feature doorways embellished with geometric patterns done in twine.

Kahn, who was born in 1943, was part of an important generation of Los Angeles photographers that included Robert Heinecken, Ilene Segalove and Jerry McMillan, among others. They brought a conceptual and collage approach to the picture. Many were chronicled in the important exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum, "Proof: Los Angeles and the Photograph: 1960-1980". Kahn's work is also included the 2011 book, L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980. 

Steve Kahn’s work is included in the permanent collections of institutions across the United States and Europe, including those of the LA County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, Toulon, France; and De Beyerd Museum; Breda, Holland.

Complete NZ Library Set 1 available here >