Mystery of the Ordinary

Edited by Felix Hoffmann

208 pages

Hardback / Clothbound
24 x 30 cm

English

Co-published with C/O Berlin

Mystery of the Ordinary captures the full scope of Eggleston’s evolution and legacy: from the early black-and-white work of the late 1950s, in which we witness his discovery and exploration of themes and unconventional cropping’s, to some of his most iconic colour images. "William Eggeston photofraphed the railway bridge form the steps of the Theater des Westens on Kantstrasse in Brlin fig1 Bilka, a deparment store, peeks out from behind it with its latticed-diamond tilling. His route throught the city began just a city block from the Amerika House, from Charlottneburg in West Berlin along the Berlin Wall to the eastern part of the city. His walk took him deep into Kreuzberg, where he had often visited the group around the Werkstatt fur Photographie, runby Michael Schmidt and Wilmar Koenig. As he did in the United States, Eggleston wandered Berlin whitout an obvious destination.

In Egglestone's hands, the camera became an instrument, a companion, and also an independentsource of motivation to move through the city and its corners and it offered up images of this movement. As an ethnologist of urban space, the flaneur is a figure who reports on how the city and its images are formed and how perception defines reality." Felix Hoffmann