Beginning in the 1980s, over many years and many journeys,
Daniel Schwartz has patiently and obsessively photographed one of
mankind's supreme monuments—the Great Wall of China. Schwartz was
the first foreigner ever to be allowed to see so much of the Wall.
From the border of North Korea westward he traveled through
mountains and deserts and frozen grasslands to the borders of
Central Asia. China's new policy of openness encouraged him to
revisit the Wall and to photograph areas that had been closed even
to him on previous journeys. This extraordinary project is at once
a beautiful photographic essay, an intriguing conceptual art
project, and a personal odyssey. As Schwartz has said: "I went to
China to find out what I was capable of...I wanted to do it because
it was impossible. I wanted to find out where the boundaries of the
impossible lay and how close I could get to them." To place the
photographs in context, the Chinese historian Luo Zhewen, who has
dedicated his life to a study of the Great Wall, has written an
essential brief history. Also included is Jorge Luis Borges's short
meditation "The Wall and the Books" and an extract from Franz
Kafka's illuminating short story "The Great Wall of China." The
Great Wall is acknowledged as the world's most amazing man-made
artifact. Daniel Schwartz, with his profound and haunting
photographs, has made not only a unique document but a book that is
a work of art in itself. 149 duotone photographs and 6 maps. --This
text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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