Charles Johnstone is an American photographer
Episode 421: Checking in with my pal Charles Johnstone about his new book Basque Courts, a limited edition artist book published in collaboration with Sun New York.
I know nothing about sports, but this is why I find Charlie’s books on courts particularly essential. It is often easy to think of pictures as “formal” and more accessible to rally against what that may even mean. I get a necessary nod to typologies and pure form from Charles’s Courts books. I use that to vaguely discuss a heavy concentration on the concentration of line and shape, compositions that offer resilience to chaos. There is an order to his work on courts that I find almost zen-like and meditative. I find my eye wandering, but my mind can settle and enjoy form without distraction. It is virtually inconsequential for me that sport is involved at all. Instead, I appreciate the work for its absolutes of line, not only its subjectivities of expression.
This is the third episode with Charles, whose varied career oscillates between walk-up apartments, television memories, and the business of documenting courts and sometimes churches with a nod to Ed Ruscha, amongst other greats. The book is likely already sold out, but you might find a few copies kicking around Offprint during Parisphoto this year. Get one or any of his other books if you can track them down. The court book, an illustrated opus on racket sports with Bill Sullivan, is also available at Sun New York.
