27 Contexts: An Anecdotal History in Photography is a series of linked essays that examine how photographs are inextricably bound in our personal and collective histories. Beginning with his childhood obsession with his parent’s wedding album through a lifetime making photographs, teaching, and writing about photography, Durant’s narrative weaves memoir with photographic history and theory.

Illustrated with a broad spectrum of images from family snapshots to Hubble space imagery, to the work of artists such as Josef Koudelka, Julia Margaret Cameron, Larry Sultan, Maya Deren, Odilon Redon, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz and Chris Marker, 27 Contexts describes a life immersed in the quotidian, the political, and the enigmatic aspects of photography.

“Mark Alice Durant is an artist, performer, writer, and critic. He has an acute eye and fertile mind, and a beautiful writing style. Durant’s writing is drawn from experiencing art and life; in his vivid appreciations, I feel a lusciousness of observation. In observing the world around him, he makes his own world, one that is always pleasurable and enlightening.” — Lynne Tillman, novelist / cultural critic.

Excerpt from 27 Contexts:
The act of photographing does not interrupt time; it simply absorbs a fraction of it. The camera nibbles at time. The shutter slides open and tucks the select instant into a dark pocket for later inspection. But the photographer often cannot predict the outcome; sometimes the image reveals a secret hidden from plain sight, as if the mystery of the world coexists within the humblest of moments.

Author: Mark Alice Durant
Publisher: Saint Lucy
Pages: 288pp
Size: 6 x 9
Notes: softcover, with flaps, color & b/w
Release Date: January 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-79921-5