The Definitive Book for Burners
Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man Photography
by Barbara Traub
Introduction: Les Blank. Foreword and Afterword: Larry Harvey.Epilogue: Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Contribution: Leonard Nimoy
"This book is a landmark. It does more than illustrate a so-called counter-cultural event. Rather, it exhibits the integrity and singleness of vision of a complete work of art...It does not merely display Burning Man in pictures or explain it in words: It manifests the spirit of our culture through its style."
- Larry Harvey, the founder and director of Burning Man
Price: $29.95, Hardcover, 160 PagesISBN: 1-59702-003-6, 11 inches wide x 10 inches tall
The Black Rock Arts Festival (otherwise known as "Burning Man,") has become an annual pilgrimage for a generation of artists to the dry, desert, alkali flats of northwestern Nevada during the last days of summer. So many people from around the world gather to celebrate human imagination that Burning Man now qualifies as Nevada's fifth-largest city. Then it culminates Labor Day weekend with the burning of a four-story tall wooden sculpture of a "man".
This book is an unprecedented photographic record of a decade of Burning Man celebrations -- from its infancy as a performance art exhibition in the late 80's to its explosion as a pop culture, community-driven phenomenon today. Photographer Barbara Traub captures the sacred and profane through photos of otherworldly artifacts, structures, and costumes that defy description.
Contributions from filmmaker Les Blank, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, Star Trek's Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy, and beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti help to illuminate Traub's unique perspective on this dynamically evolving event.
Order your own autographed copy with free limited edition postcard!
Reviews:
"Good visual fun and countercultural documentation, this is vibrant stuff in these grim days, a must for pop-culture collections."- ALA Booklist
"I always direct these peers to Barbara Traub's photographs. I have never been to the Burning Man. But I am doing everything that I can to get there this year. But I have a feeling that what I will perceive will be more like your photographs than anything else I have seen on the Net. Each image seems so well composed and produced. Selectivity is creativity. What you omit from your images, the meaningless visual noise, brings the subject to life. And what you include, is so there. Just saying thank you for your work."
- Cannon
"This is Burning Man - the counterculture arts gathering of self-reliant souls who for a week every year meet in a Nevada desert to rebuild a sense of community many feel has been lost."
- BBC News
"The event is more than the sum of its art cars, kinetic sculptures or suntanned bodies clad in body paint and glitter (and sometimes not much else)."
- Wired
(photos: Barbara Traub at 2006 Burning Man)
