Magdalena Wysocka – Studies of Falls

Review by Paul Anderson •

A first look through Magdalena Wysocka’s photobook Studies of Falls can be a very mysterious experience. There is nothing here to help point the way. The images are vague, there is no introductory text, there are no image captions, and no artist statement. There is, however, an important hint printed in the top right corner of the cover: “Sylacauga, Ala. 30 XI ’54.” To wit, in Sylacauga, Alabama on November 30, 1954, a meteorite fell to earth and plunged through the roof of a home, striking and injuring a person inside. That person was Ann Hodges, and through this encounter with an interstellar object she became something of a local celebrity. It was an event that had a significant impact on her life. In Studies of Falls, Wysocka reimagines the narrative of this exceedingly rare event. According to the website of the book’s publisher, Outer Space Press:

‘Studies of falls’ is a photobook which attempts not only to examine the meteorite as a mysterious physical object, but also the role which chance and accident plays in our lives, taking the meteoritic fall into Ann Hodges’ life as a starting point.

Wysocka retells this story in an abstract and provocative way by co-opting graphical material from a number of disparate sources that all bear on this subject. This includes classroom physics material on parabolic trajectories from a 1970 textbook, extensive images of dissected and whole meteorites from a 1952 book called Out of the Sky by Harvey Harlow Nininger, and publicly available photographs from the 1954 meteorite strike in Alabama. The images are all presented in monochrome with a matte finish, duplicating the visual noise and grain found in newspaper clippings from the 1950’s. This treatment gives the book a rather melancholy feel, as if one is looking back at an historical event from a great distance and through a rather poor lens.

Further, the author has modified at least some of the source images to further generalize them. For example, the axes labels and other identifying information have been removed from the scientific textbook material, which reduces these graphs to very simplified concepts. This serves her minimalist aesthetic, and is reminiscent of the work of Andy Mattern in his photobook Average Subject / Medium Distance. Mattern applied a similar treatment to Kodaguides, which were printed Kodak photographic aids produced for the amateur photographer from the 1940s through the 1980s.

The image sequence follows a rough story line. Early pages show mysterious looking clouds, unidentified objects in daytime skies, a few buildings, and traces of parabolic trajectories that could be falling objects. One of the buildings is a fun image of Sylacauga’s aptly named Comet movie theater from1954. Scattered about are full page images of large, non-representational shapes that are very aesthetically pleasing. In the middle of the book are images of meteorites, both whole and in cross section. We also see blurry UFO-like things, and streaks across starry backgrounds. Towards the end we find the offending meteorite, the offended Ann Hodges, and finally four full-bleed pages of ominous abstracted forms.

The main theme of Studies of Falls is the consideration of rare and fateful events. Anyone looking through this book can reflect on their encounters with rare events, and contemplate how their life had been changed. Or, by using the example of this one historic event, one could contemplate life’s mysteries, wonders, and seeming randomness. The openness of the content invites multiple interpretations.

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The publisher, Outer Space Press, is an artistic collaboration between Magdalena Wysocka and Claudio Pogo. As stated on the Outer Space Press website, their art practice “… is based on collecting and re-contextualising photography, found books, and other archival material in order to create new visual narratives.” Their books are designed, prototyped, and produced in-house.

Wysocka and Pogo also appear in another PhotoBook Journal article about the LA Art Book Fair of 2023.

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Paul Anderson is a photographer/digital artist, working in Hermosa Beach, CA

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Magdalena Wysocka – Studies of Falls

Photographer: Magdalena Wysocka (born in Poland, currently resides in Berlin, Germany)

IG @wysocka.magdalena

Text: English

Smyth sewn with black thread binding, clothbound and debossed hard cover; 108 pages, 24 x 33 cm, edition size of 150

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