Aperture Presents Newly Reimagined Edition of Dislocations by Alex Webb

The new edition of the highly popular and influential photobook by Alex Webb, Dislocations, was published recently by Aperture. The book was first compiled in 1998 and had a limited edition of only 40 copies. It was an experiment in alternative bookmaking but has nonetheless brought popularity to Webb's unique perspective in capturing everyday scenes. 

The new edition includes previously unpublished images that address contemporary feelings of displacement and expand this universal theme across different decades.

Dislocations

Coming out at the end of the 1990s, Dislocations was a wonderous book that offered a skewed glimpse of the moments that surround us but which often go unnoticed. Filled with images from different locations — Coney Island, New York; Veracruz, Mexico; Durban, South Africa; Genoa, Italy; Chongqing, China — the book was an experiment on the act of photography as a formal dislocation itself. 

"My work is questioning and exploratory," Webb says. "I believe in photographs that convey a certain level of ambiguity, that ask questions rather than provide answers."

Browsing through images in Dislocations, this approach becomes evident. The artist is giving us a glimpse of the world he witnessed, but his testimony captures fragments of bigger stories that remain unrevealed in full. 

Objects and people intermingle in the planes of his vision, but their arrangements display the artist's fundamental preoccupation with colour fields, relationships between lines and forms, and a strong sensibility towards the unexpected. Possible narratives remain marginal, although many of the photos Webb has taken in places with socio-political conflicts, such as Haiti, the US-Mexico border, and many US cities. 

His complex and vibrant photographs reveal, as he explains, "the secret heart of the known," which "awaits just around the corner."

Alex Webb

Born in San Francisco in 1952, Alex Webb began working as a professional photojournalist at 22 as a Magnum Photos nominee. Later on, he went to work for popular magazines and journals, including the New York Times Magazine, Geo, Life, and National Geographic, among others.

Spending a good deal of his career in Latin America and the Caribbean, Webb was influenced by the colours of these places, pushing him to move away from black-and-white photography in 1979. 

So far, Webb has published 16 photography books, including a survey of the 30 years of his career, The Suffering of Light, and Memory City, which focuses on the city of Rochester, NY, in collaboration with his creative partner and wife, Rebecca Norris Webb. 

Among his recent titles are La Calle: Photographs from Mexico, the collaboration Slant Rhymes with Rebecca, as well as the upcoming Dislocations. 

The New Edition by Aperture

Alex Webb is the recipient of numerous awards and grants in photography, including the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2000 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. 

The book Dislocations was published on November 7th, 2023, by Aperture and can be ordered from the publisher's website.

Featured image: Alex Webb - Milan, 2016; from Alex Webb: Dislocations (Aperture, 2023) © Alex Webb