Marget Long’s Flash + Cube (1965-1975)

Flash + Cube (1965-1975) is the culmination of three years Marget Long’s research surrounding the Sylvania flashcube in book form.  The Sylvania Flashcube is a flash photography devise that was in production from 1965 to 1975. 

 

Long’s seven by nine inch, one hundred and sixty page, softcover book tells the story of this space-age device and the culture that produced it, through a selection from her archive of materials, including newspaper and magazine clippings and technical drawings, as well as the artist’s own photographs and photomontages.   

 

The archive, as Long explains in her introduction, is not neutral.  Ergo, her archive feels quite personal, not only as a result of the inclusion of the artist’s own work but, also, though her selection and sequencing of found material, used to confess her reverence for this nostalgia devices, while simultaneously creating a dark juxtapositions between American consumer culture in the 1960’s and 70’s and The Vietnam War.

 

For more information visit: Punctum Books

—Liz Sales