Gods of Earth and Heaven

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Once you have witnessed the dark, sensational visions of Joel-Peter Witkin, you will never be the same again. Witkin gets to you. Here you will encounter hermaphrodites, malformed bodies, Siamese twins, corpses, fetuses, cut-off heads, and self-torturers. Witkin's compositions go far beyond conventional "freak show" tableaux to achieve a sinister and dignified beauty, and he includes numerous art-historical references that add context and acerbic wit. This exquisitely produced collection of black-and-white photographs will take you, as Guy Blaisdell writes in an essay at the end of the book, into "a human afterworld ... one that comes before or after the death of this world--a place where the spirits of the dead live on by sitting as works of art for their portraits, descending into our moment and returning always to their identical selves." Warning: Not for those under 18 and/or easily disturbed.


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In this, our second volume of Witkin's photographs, the work is as controversial as ever. In often torturous or eroticized still lifes and tableaux, cadavers, physical anomalies, transsexuals and animals are carefully arranged to create a mythology that could originate only in the imagination of this singular artist. In Gods of Earth and Heaven, Witkin advances an aesthetic point of view in a manner that raises his artistic output to a new level of sophistication. As often praised as he is derided by critics, his work has become a basis for serious debate on issues of life and death, love and sexuality. At the very least Witkin's work challenges traditional canons of beauty and the spiritual in art. An updated bibliography and exhibition history are included.


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