Michael Ackerman: Smoke

Michael Ackerman: Smoke
Category: Photographer Monographs & Art Books
Reviews: star star star star star
Publisher: L'axolotl
Publication Date: 2023
Print Length: 136 pages
Language: English
Price: paid paid paid

Published in 700 copies, this work is a form of homage to Benjamin, singer, poet, figure of the American underground who has now disappeared, and to Cabbageton, a penniless district of Atlanta. Designed as a scrapbook, it mixes photographs by Michael Ackerman, pages of Benjamin's notes or archival documents, with texts by Jem Cohen and Patti Smith. It reveals the infinite grace, the urgency, the delicacy like the frenzy of a forgotten man and era.

I remember my first time at Benjamin's, my first time in Atlanta. It was late at night, after a Smoke concert. He was hanging out with a few friends in his room, talking, laughing, smoking. I barely knew him. I still don't understand why I was invited. He was brilliant, charismatic, funny and tender. I sat in a corner, amazed and in awe, and remained silent. I may have taken a few photos, maybe not. Around 4 am, I fell asleep on the floor in another room. A few hours later, I woke up, looked in his room and saw him sleeping, also on the floor, in front of his bed. Today, 27 years later, I try to remember what it felt like to see him lying there, so fragile. I took a photo at the time,

Selected Books by This Photographer

Half Life

2011 - Lewis, Dewi Publishing

Michael Ackerman

 

Michael Ackerman: Fiction

2001 - Delpire

Michael Ackerman

 

End Time City

1999 - Scalo Publishers

Michael Ackerman, Christian Caujolle, Alexis Scharzenbach

 

AAP Magazine Travels 2026
 

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