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Summary: Both reverent and irreverant
Review: Dark, spooky, and amazingly detailed, these photographs are stunningly beautiful. I will never forget the picture of a scooped-out eyeball staring into space, or the pull of iodine-stained skin around forceps. I highly recommend this book to fans of Vaughn Oliver's work (best known for his 4AD record covers).
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Summary: Astonishing photographs of surgeries with moving text.
Review: Imagine as a layperson being a witness to 100 major surgeries and you've entered the world of Max Aguilera-Hellweg's incredible book, "The Sacred Heart." A review of this book of surgical photographs in the Los Angeles Times grabbed my attention. "...these images are so visually beautiful that you are drawn into them before you know what you're looking at . . .Most of us have some familiarity with medical photography, and though it's rarely pleasant, it generally has a clinical quality that allows us to distance ourselves from the events depicted. Aguilera-Hellweg upends that tradition as well; drawing a parallel between the invasiveness central to surgery and photography, he leaves the viewer no place to hide and pushes everything front and center." This is the only book I've ever experienced where you think twice about turning the page for fear of what you might see next. Check it out.
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Summary: A book to buy!
Review: This book covers the topic from an artist's point of view. It is elegant and haunting in its illustration and text. It has affected me profoundly and I'm sure will do the same for all readers.
Rating:
Summary: A book to buy!
Review: This book covers the topic from an artist's point of view. It is elegant and haunting in its illustration and text. It has affected me profoundly and I'm sure will do the same for all readers.
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Summary: Reality is too much for some people
Review: This book is brave, and very well put-together. The work of photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg, whose shots can also be seen in the yearly calendar issued by Philadelphia's Mutter Museum, is brilliant in its lighting and composition.The subject, as revealed in the subtitle, is invasive surgery. Those who say the book is exploitative since the photographs are disturbing, probably need a Hallmark Card version of truth, and reality. Invasive surgery invades the body. There are not photographs of Kate Moss, though it might be of Kate Moss later in life after the effects of her smoking finally rear their ugly head. But the photos in The Sacred Heart really come to terms with the ugliness and contradictory beauty of the human body in its most elemental stage. The introduction is by Richard Selzer, whose other extremely readable books achieve direct paths to the most curious and disturbing aspects of what is seen by the doctor of medicine.
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