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Renate Aller’s Favorite Book from 2019

Lines and Lineage by Tomas van Houtryve.   Published by Radius Books.

In his exceptionally beautifully printed book, Lines and Lineage, Thomas van Houtryve recontextualizes and corrects the narratives and mythologies of the Far West as they had been mis-presented in the American awareness for the last 150 years — and again self-servingly for the recent administration.

He intentionally uses a 19th-century camera and wet plate process to re-tell the untold Mexican story in the way that it would have been told in the mid-19th century. Filling in this blank that Western perception consciously created, he pairs as diptychs, compelling portraits of descendants of the original Mexican inhabitants with landscapes that describe their link and connectedness to the land.


Born in Germany, Renate Aller lives and works in New York. Mountain Interval is her latest project and is accompanied by a monograph with an essay by Terrie Sultan, The Parrish Museum director where she had a solo exhibition 2019.
Aller's work supports her investigation into the relationship between Romanticism, memory, and landscape—in the context of our current socio-political awareness.
www.renatealler.com