Keith Carter: Fifty Years

Dubbed a "poet of the ordinary" by the Los Angeles Times, photographer Keith Carter came of age during the turbulent '60s and '70s, developing a singular, haunting style that captures both the grit and the glory of the human spirit. Showcasing a broad array of his work--which has been shown in more than one hundred solo exhibitions in thirteen countries--Keith Carter: Fifty Years spans delicate, century-old processes as well as digital-age techniques to yield an enduring vision of the world around us. The interlaced images in Keith Carter: Fifty Years feature contrasts of natural light and darkness as we explore the mythos of time and terrain, the familiar and the magical, and the varied creatures that inhabit our earth. The human form--depleted or energized, solitary or with a beloved partner--becomes a meditation on aging and loss, which have affected Carter profoundly in recent years. Yet these losses have spurred in him a sense of discovery, not despair. Rather than arranging the works chronologically, Carter chose to group them into correlations, echoing the kaleidoscopic effect of memory. The result is mesmerizing; each artifact draws us into an experience of intensity and wonder, enduring long after the page is turned.
Celebrating a lifetime of exploring humanity's landscape through an artistic lens, the legendary photographer Keith Carter collects more than 250 of his most compelling images, ranging from the deeply personal to the universal, accompanied by essays from
[Keith Carter: Fifty Years] is a retrospective of a half century's worth of compelling images. Alternating between the haunting and surreal, and the tender and intimate, Carter's work amounts to visual poetry.-- "Pasatiempo" (12/6/2019 12:00:00 AM)
[Keith Carter: Fifty Years] signals another rite of passage for the artist.-- "Glasstire" (10/24/2019 12:00:00 AM)
[Keith Carter: Fifty Years] takes readers on a visual journey through a dream world that Carter often captures in the quiet realities of daily life around his adopted east Texas hometown of Beaumont.-- "Digital Photo Pro" (12/18/2019 12:00:00 AM)
Carter's photographs provide a vision of Texas as we all want to imagine it to be: a hot-as-hell oasis where people lead picturesque yet complex lives, imbued with a sense of calm that can only be felt when an endless landscape extends in all directions. His work helps a transplant like me remember the state for the things that I miss rather than for the reasons I left.-- "The New Yorker" (12/5/2018 12:00:00 AM)
Fifty Years is epic in size and scale...This book holds pleasures for those who are familiar with [Carter's] work and those who aren't.-- "PhotoBook Journal" (5/14/2019 12:00:00 AM)
Many of [Carter's] most haunting photos explore the invisible links between humans and beasts: A boy hugs his horse goodbye after it's sold, a Mississippi man sees a litter of kittens as his family, and a distraught woman discovers that a fox found its way into her henhouse. Each portrait presents a puzzle to viewers, who must attempt to discover for themselves what it is about this certain image that makes it so poignant.-- "Z�calo Public Square" (5/14/2019 12:00:00 AM)
Photographer Keith Carter has spent his life revealing the magical in the mundane...the results, as readers of this book will see, are anything but ordinary.-- "The Texas Observer" (12/12/2018 12:00:00 AM)
This stunning 320-page monograph includes work that spans from antiquated processes to digital techniques, all of which connect us deeper to the discovery of magic in the world surrounding us.-- "Black & White Photography" (5/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)