NEW YORK, NY.- Twenty years ago Charles Traub abandoned all pretense of trying to find specific themes and subjects in his photographic wanderings other than to make 'Taradiddles', embracing fully the digital image which is always questioned for its further and inherent potential for distortion. Ironically, the witty and sardonic juxtaposition of Traub’s images, are only a matter of framing his discoveries - here, there and everywhere.
This volume is a collection of trifles that become matters of remarkable social commentary when Traub photographs them - “For me, serendipity, coincidence and chance are more interesting than any preconceived construct of our human encounters.” (Charles H. Traub) - in a hundred plus images Traub seems to have captured the common incongruities of a global society.
Traub took these pictures in more than 60 cities around the world: Dubai, Shanghai, Beijing, Rome, Tunis, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Santo Domingo, New York, just to name a few.
"What unites Traub’s pictures here? They are all in one way or another about photography. They may even amount to a commentary upon photography as a phenomenon of daily life. Photography as something we do daily, and photographs as things we encounter daily, often by chance. To this extent at least, these are meta-photographs. " David Campany, from the introduction to Taradiddle.
"Restless and inquisitive, Charles H. Traub photographs the world with humor, clarity, and pathos. A taradiddle may be a childish lie, or pretentious nonsense, but Traub’s own work is anything but. Taradiddle is a poignant and pointed work that tells unsettling and unexpected truths about our world." Adam Bell, critic / photographer, Brooklyn Rail.
Charles Traub was born in Louisville, KY in 1945 and has been photographing for 50 years. He has eleven books to his credit and sixty major exhibitions including one person shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hudson River Museum, the Historic New Orleans collection, and is in the collections of more than two dozen international museums. For the past 30 years, he has been the Chairperson of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media program at the School of Visual Arts and presently is the Co-Director of the Aaron Siskind Foundation.
David Campany is a writer, curator, and artist who is widely recognized for his award-winning essays and books regarding the lens and screen arts. He teaches at the University of Westminister in London and is the recipient of the ICP Infinity award and the Royal Photographic Society's award for writing.
