Eli Durst's The Four Pillars scrutinises aspirational American fantasies of happiness, self-improvement and individuality. Durst's staged, inventive images deconstruct the markers of success, progress and identity within middle-class American society, interrogating the relationship between the individual and the group, the norms we aspire to, and the social gravity that holds these two in alignment.
Taking inspiration from self-help books and pseudo-Christian wellness tracts, our office-blue flexi-hardcover design of The Four Pillars uses Jacob Wise's expressive Kormelink italics to situate Durst's uncomfortable images in a liminal space between a manual for living and an obliquely critical photobook.
Loose Joints Publishing, 2022
144pp, 235 × 270 mm, 70 tritone plates
Flexi-bound faux-leather hardcover
Edited by Sarah Chaplin Espenon at Loose Joints Studio
with a prose piece by Rick Moody
ISBN 978-1-912719-39-7
Design, Editing, Production
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