New York-based photographer Henry Leutwyler's new book Document examines humble objects from iconic moments such as the first moonwalk, political assassinations or episodes in the lives of musicians, artists and athletes. Ten years in the making, Document is essentially a collection of portraits of things: Mahatma Gandhi's sandal, Alan Shepard's golf club, Janis Joplin's acoustic guitar, Jack Ruby's handgun. Leutwyler shows us these objects close up--straight on and without backdrop--in a style that is equal parts still life, portraiture and crime-scene photography.
Though isolated from their contexts and owners, these objects are the testaments of bodily histories, the traces of personalities and the stuff of our collective memory. Document invites us to engage with our "icons" in wholly new ways, and to see our history differently, through the unexpected emotional charge of singular objects.
