Antony Cairns – CTY, Signed & Numbered Limited Edition, 2018

A signed and numbered limited edition of CTY by British photographer Antony Cairns, published by Akio Nagasawa Publishing in 2018 in an edition of 750 copies. CTY brings together Cairns’ atmospheric studies of contemporary cities, drawing from bodies of work made in London, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Osaka. Photographed largely at night and using the available illumination of the urban environment, Cairns’ images transform architecture, construction sites and illuminated façades into fragmented, almost abstract compositions. This Akio Nagasawa edition presents a deliberately reworked version of the earlier Morel Books publication: the original photographs are reconstructed through a negative-positive reversal, extending Cairns’ long-standing exploration of the relationship between photography, reproduction and obsolete technologies. The resulting imagery oscillates between recognisable cityscape and graphic abstraction, giving the book an almost cinematic, futuristic quality. AKIO NAGASAWA The volume incorporates six texts by curator Simon Baker, structured around ideas of the modern and imagined city and drawing on writers including J. G. Ballard, William Gibson, H. P. Lovecraft and Benjamin Péret. Cairns’ experimental approach to both photographic material and publishing has become central to his practice, which frequently incorporates analogue printing processes, electronic displays, computer punch cards and other forms of obsolete technology. AKIO NAGASAWA With its distinctive full-cover image construction and substantial 376-page format, CTY functions as both a photographic monograph and a carefully conceived artist’s object.