In An Abridged Dictionary of Sculpture John Gossage considers the changes objects (sculptures) undergo when they are photographed. His images transform these objects rather than transcribe them, altering their condition of being. For Gossage, to photograph is to ask one thing to become another kind of thing. Indeed, does a sculpture always need a pedestal or isolation to not just be another thing in the world? Whether a pile of archive folders, a dirty beaker, a heap of baseball caps, a plank of wood or a tuft of grass, he photographs these objects against the same background of white paper, their shadows often taking on as much presence as their concrete forms. With so much of the objects unclear (their volume, scale and weight, their three-dimensionality), and each having lost its original purpose or being about to die, how much has Gossage actually saved in his photographs: only his intentions? Is a good photograph always better than what it pictures—and how? This book is a dictionary because it describes the sculptures rather than being the sculptures: as every photograph does with everything.

Co-published with The Agency, Hudson Valley