Invented Landscapes of Coney Island – Book + Hard Cover + Engraving + Print

$350.00

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LIMITED EDITION – Hardbound Japanese binding and 8.5-inch-by-11-inch print of Carlos Diaz: Invented Landscapes of Coney Island and Carnival Attendants

LIMITED EDITION OF 50 NUMBERED AND SIGNED. The book inside the binding is the same as the other editions, but it has these additional features:

  • Cloth, hard-embossed cover with roller coaster art
  • Japanese-style hand binding
  • Original nineteenth-century engraving placed at the front of the book by Carlos Diaz (no two books are the same, as these are original engravings hand cut by the artist)
  • Signed by Carlos Diaz and numbered in an edition of fifty
  • 8.5-inch-by-11-inch Invented Landscapes print placed in the back of the book

There are only a few of these left, so buy now before they sell out!

Keep reading for the full description

Carlos Diaz’s early 1980s carnival images and his Invented Landscapes are brought together for the first time in a beautifully presented volume published in 2017 by Obscura Land.

Diaz’s Invented Landscapes work spans three decades, starting with images he captured in the early 1980s of Coney Island in New York City. Although in today’s world one might think these images were generated digitally, Diaz began creating the Invented Landscapes a decade before Adobe® Photoshop® software was on the scene. The original work combines silver halide prints with vintage nineteenth-century industrial engravings that he painstakingly cut by hand from books and other printed materials. He then carefully integrated the drawings with the photos to create these fantastical images.

The book includes essays from renowned photo critic, A. D. Coleman, and historian, Mary McNichols, PhD, as well as an artist statement from Diaz himself.

There are a total of fifty-five images in this book: thirty-three Invented Landscapes, eleven carnival workers, nine postcards from early twentieth-century Coney Island, and two images of original Coney Island tickets.

The inside pages of the book are coated with a matte finish, yet it allows the original black-and-white silver photos of Coney Island to pop through with a subtle glossy finish. This allows the nineteenth-century engravings to appear matte and the photos to appear glossy—just as the original works of art would be if you were looking at them in person.

This is a truly beautiful and unique book.