2026
20 copies
Signed and numbered
20 copies
Signed and numbered
60 pages
36×27 cm - 14.1×10.6 in.
36×27 cm - 14.1×10.6 in.
Daniel Gordon’s project DUETS with Three Star Books departs from the traditional photobook model. Rather than simply reproducing images, the book is conceived as an artwork in which photography itself is the medium. Gordon works at the intersection of photography and art: his images are constructed, exploring illusion, composition, and perception, while the book’s sixty-page structure foregrounds its own temporality and makes the experience of moving through the book an integral part of the artistic experience.
Unlike film, whose viewing conditions have been transformed by digital technologies, the book medium has always allowed for a decomposed and non-linear experience: it can be approached from beginning to end, read in reverse, opened at random, or paused indefinitely. In DUETS, this inherent freedom becomes central to the work’s proposal.
The artist’s design introduces an additional layer of complexity. Through an original layout and varying page formats, images are alternately concealed and revealed. Pages overlap, fragment, and reframe one another, generating shifting visual relationships as the reader moves through the volume. The work thus becomes tactile and performative: the act of turning pages activates the images. In doing so, the conventional distance between artwork and reproduction is effectively dissolved, evoking Michael Snow’s Cover to Cover (1975), where the physical movement through the book is integral to the artwork itself.
The images themselves belong to a new series that deepens Gordon’s longstanding investigation of illusion. Known for constructing and photographing studio-built assemblages, the artist here introduces a second degree of artifice through pseudo-transparency. Elements such as glasses or glass vases appear translucent, yet this impression of transparency is simulated within opaque prints. The subjects Gordon creates—vases, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and other timeless motifs—evoke the tradition of the nature morte, an endlessly renewable framework through which artists express shifting emotional and conceptual registers. Gordon emphasizes the paradox inherent to still life: although the genre suggests stasis or death, his images feel vividly alive, animated by color, composition, and perceptual play.
Color which plays a decisive role in DUETS is calibrated with micro-tonal precision and reproduced through HP Indigo printing, the images achieve remarkable chromatic depth and nuance. Ultimately, illusion lies at the core of the project: rather than reflecting reality, DUETS embraces artifice as a means of generating emotion, suggesting that a true work of art engages less with the real than with the power of illusion to shape perception and feeling.
A rubber stamp print designed at Three Star Books is affixed to the first page of the book, authenticating the project, and is accompanied by the edition number and the artist’s signature. Finally, the book is enclosed in a slipcase featuring one of the backgrounds Daniel Gordon created for a composition in DUETS.
Three Star Books extends its gratitude to Lola Cassayre for her skilled and dedicated assistance in the production of DUETS.
Unlike film, whose viewing conditions have been transformed by digital technologies, the book medium has always allowed for a decomposed and non-linear experience: it can be approached from beginning to end, read in reverse, opened at random, or paused indefinitely. In DUETS, this inherent freedom becomes central to the work’s proposal.
The artist’s design introduces an additional layer of complexity. Through an original layout and varying page formats, images are alternately concealed and revealed. Pages overlap, fragment, and reframe one another, generating shifting visual relationships as the reader moves through the volume. The work thus becomes tactile and performative: the act of turning pages activates the images. In doing so, the conventional distance between artwork and reproduction is effectively dissolved, evoking Michael Snow’s Cover to Cover (1975), where the physical movement through the book is integral to the artwork itself.
The images themselves belong to a new series that deepens Gordon’s longstanding investigation of illusion. Known for constructing and photographing studio-built assemblages, the artist here introduces a second degree of artifice through pseudo-transparency. Elements such as glasses or glass vases appear translucent, yet this impression of transparency is simulated within opaque prints. The subjects Gordon creates—vases, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and other timeless motifs—evoke the tradition of the nature morte, an endlessly renewable framework through which artists express shifting emotional and conceptual registers. Gordon emphasizes the paradox inherent to still life: although the genre suggests stasis or death, his images feel vividly alive, animated by color, composition, and perceptual play.
Color which plays a decisive role in DUETS is calibrated with micro-tonal precision and reproduced through HP Indigo printing, the images achieve remarkable chromatic depth and nuance. Ultimately, illusion lies at the core of the project: rather than reflecting reality, DUETS embraces artifice as a means of generating emotion, suggesting that a true work of art engages less with the real than with the power of illusion to shape perception and feeling.
A rubber stamp print designed at Three Star Books is affixed to the first page of the book, authenticating the project, and is accompanied by the edition number and the artist’s signature. Finally, the book is enclosed in a slipcase featuring one of the backgrounds Daniel Gordon created for a composition in DUETS.
Three Star Books extends its gratitude to Lola Cassayre for her skilled and dedicated assistance in the production of DUETS.
© 2026 Three Star Books, All Rights Reserved