ABOUT:
Vanishing by Anna Arendt is a poetic and atmospheric photobook exploring themes of memory, disappearance, and the fragility of human presence. Arendt’s imagery—delicate, introspective, and visually rich—invites readers into a world where the ordinary dissolves into dreamlike abstraction. Her refined use of light, texture, and gesture creates photographs that feel intimate yet mysterious, balancing emotional depth with conceptual clarity.
This signed edition adds significant appeal for collectors, elevating an already powerful body of work into a treasured fine-art object. Vanishing stands out as a thoughtful and immersive contribution to contemporary photography.
Arendt was born in the German Democratic Republic. She was 24 when The Wall fell, her daughter was 2. Her parents were born 1940 in Germany, children of war. Both of her grandfathers had been soldiers, who had been in Poland between 1940 and 1942. One came back 2 years after the war was over, the other one never returned. Arendt later discovered that her husband’s father, photographer Sid Grossman’s family came from the area in Poland that her two grandfathers were sent during the war.
As a child, she found a secret shelf that contained photo albums of her family. "It is where I discovered the power of a picture. A picture taken in summer 1940. A young family, my grandmother, her baby and my grandfather in a German uniform. A picture full of contradictions, carrying ambivalent feelings even until today."
Photographed mostly between Germany and Poland over 15 years, the work slides back and forth through time like a blood memory. Walking naked through the dark forest, wolves circling, howling. A daughter becoming a mother becoming a grandmother becoming a child. Haunted villages, and souls in jeopardy. The harsh reality of the past merges seamlessly with moments of rapture that feel plucked from a Grimm fairy tale.
Vanishing is an unforgettable depiction of how beauty and brutality coexist in the hearts of men and beasts.
Book Details
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Photographer: Anna Arendt
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Title: Vanishing
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Edition: Signed
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Publisher: CHARCOALPRESS
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Format: Hardcover
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Pages: 144
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Photographs:black-and-white
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Language: English
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Genre: Contemporary photography / conceptual / fine-art
