Marcia Resnick: Re-Visions

When the celebrated New York photographer Marcia Resnick (born 1950) was involved in a car crash in 1975, she saw her whole life flash before her eyes. Inspired by this procession of memories, Resnick decided to revisit her childhood memories in a series of staged photographs that she would eventually publish as the artist’s book Re-visions in 1978.

Accompanied by texts, these black-and-white photographs convey a surreal and often darkly humorous depiction of the trials and tribulations of girlhood: in one image, a girl kisses a Howdy Doody doll above the text “She secretly lusted for her television idols;” in another, the phrase “They were continually telling her that she had stars in her eyes” accompanies a photograph of two jacks resting on a girl’s closed eyelids.

This is the first facsimile edition of what has become a classic of 1970s artist’s book publishing.