Sarah Charlesworth: Stills

This work accompanies the landmark posthumous exhibition of photos by Sarah Charlesworth (1947–2013) at the Art Institute of Chicago. Charlesworth was part of the 1970s' "Pictures Generation," a contemporary movement in which artists began to explore such concepts as originality, sexuality, and gender. Four of her 14 images were originally exhibited in 1980, but the series was not completed until 2012. This catalog showcases the complete series of 14 large-scale photos made from appropriated news images that have been greatly enlarged to show figures jumping or falling from city buildings to their death. Each image is titled by the person's name and the city in which he or she jumped. However, the photos are so magnified that any context to the actual event has been removed. Thus, the jumpers, captured midleap, appear to almost be flying. Even though these pictures were created in 1980, it is impossible not to compare them to the disturbing visuals of victims jumping from the World Trade Center in 2001. The book includes a critical essay by Witkovsky, curator of the department of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, that places this important book within an historical and conceptual context.