Mike Mandel, Good 70s, 2015

Mike Mandel is best known for his project The Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, as well as his collaborations with the late Larry Sultan. Mandel employs conceptual structures and social commentary underneath a playful presentation. For The Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, Mandel travelled across the US in 1974, posing 134 photographers and curators as ball players, and photographing them. Participants included famous figures (Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Harry Callahan, Minor White, Aaron Siskind, William Eggleston, Ed Ruscha, John Szarkowski) as well as lesser-known artists. Cards were made of each participant, and included “stats” such as height, weight, home, favorite camera and a personal statement. The original cards were sold in packs of ten.This boxed collection contains facsimiles of Mandel’s original publications, long out-of-print, including The Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, Myself: Timed Exposures, Seven Never Before Seen Portraits of Edward Weston, plus previously unpublished work and ephemera from the projects, including selected facsimile contact sheets from the baseball photo shoots, Motel Postcards, People in Cars, Mrs. Kilpatric, a letter to Mandel from Charis Wilson regarding Edward Weston and a pack of ten of the original 1975 baseball cards.