Bright Black World

We are thrilled to announce the publication of Todd Hido’s new monograph, Bright Black World. For over two decades, Hido has crafted narratives through loose and mysterious suburban scenes, desolate landscapes, and stylized portraits. He has traversed North America capturing places that feel at once familiar and unknown; welcoming and unsettling. Underscoring the influences of Nordic mythology and specifically the idea of Fimbulwinter, which translates into the ‘endless winter’, many of Hido’s new images allude to and provide form for this notion of an apocalyptic, never-ending winter.

Exploring the dark terrain of the Northern European landscape and regions as far as the North Sea of Japan enchanted Hido, calling him back on several occasions. This newest publication highlights the artist’s first significant foray extensively photographing territory outside of the United States, chronicling a decidedly new psychological geography.

Opening with a text by Alexander Nemerov, Bright Black World comprises 48 plates printed in an oversized format, and featuring two vertical gatefolds and a fold-out poster measuring some 25 x 40 inches. This first printing is limited to 3,000 clothbound copies.

Todd Hido’s photographs have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, and most recently at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle, Switzerland. Other major institutions that have exhibited Hido’s work include the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Miami Art Museum, Florida; Netherland Architecture Institute, Rotterdam; Palazzo Ducale, Genova, Italy; Samsung Museum of Modern Art in Korea; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work was most recently on view in the 49th edition of Les Recontres d’Arles, France.

Work by Hido is held in public and private collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Smithsonian; and Fotomuseum Winterthur. Bright Black World is Todd Hido’s seventh monograph.