Anonymous Objects: Inscrutable Photographs and the Unknown

by Kim Bell

Anonymous Objects is an enigmatic little book about unidentifiable things in photographs. As a “prospect of unknowing,” it points towards limits of knowledge “in a world that seems to give up images of itself more freely every day,” so that “there's very little left to the unknown.” Kim Beil suggests (with Roland Barthes) that impenetrable photographs keep mysteries alive. Her “archive of the anonymous” makes “room for curiosity and wonder by resisting our facile attempts to know the world by naming it.”Anonymous Objects is a fine sanctuary for the forgotten things and former lives that are captured in the “ineffable shadows” of old photographs. The book is part of the SPBH Essays series of “visual and textual essays,” “oscillating between the academic and the lyrical, the poetic and the political.” It is well designed by Brian Paul Lamotte and will fit snugly in your coat pocket. — Herbert Pföstl, Book Consultant for the New Museum Store.

Anonymous Objects: Inscrutable Photographs and the Unknown suggests that unidentifiable things in photographs point towards larger questions about the limits of knowledge. In a world that seems to give up images of itself more freely every day, there’s very little left to the unknown. Inscrutable photographs keep ambiguity alive. They make room for curiosity and wonder by resisting our facile attempts to know the world by naming it.

2024; paperback; 3.94 x 5.83 inches; 175 pages; ISBN: 9781739606725.