In "Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names," Magnum photographer Alex Webb displays his particular ability to distill gesture, color and contrasting cultural tensions into a single, beguiling frame. He presents a vision of Istanbul as an urban cultural center, rich with the incandescence of its past--a city of minarets and pigeons rising to the heavens during the early-morning call to Muslim prayers--yet also a city riddled with ATM machines and clothed in designer jeans.
Webb began photographing Istanbul in 1998, and became instantly enthralled: by the people, the layers of culture and history, the richness of street life. But what particularly drew him in was a sense of Istanbul as a border city, lying between Europe and Asia.
"For 30-some years as a photographer, I have been intrigued by borders, places where cultures come together, sometimes easily, sometimes roughly."
The resulting body of work, some of Webb's strongest to date, conveys the frisson of a culture in transition, yet firmly rooted in a complex history. With essay by the Nobel Prize winning novelist, Orhan Pamuk.
Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names
Category: Photographer Monographs & Art Books
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Author: Alex Webb, Orhan Pamuk
Publisher: Aperture
Publication Date:
2007
Print Length: 136 pages
Language: English
Price: paid
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Selected Books by This Photographer
Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb: Brooklyn, The City Within
2019 - Aperture
Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, Sean Corcoran
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