Creative Photography

Superb creative works by London-born New York photographer Phillip Toledano. Phillip was born to a French Moroccan mother, and an American father. He believes that photographs should be like unfinished sentences. There should always be space for questions. Phillip’s work is primarily socio-political, and varies in medium, from photography, to installation. His first book, entitled “Bankrupt” (Photographs of recently vacated offices) was published by Twin Palms in 2005. His new book, ‘Phone Sex’ was published in 2008. ‘Days with my Father’, will be published in the spring of 2010. Phillip’s most recent project was installation art, not photography. Entitled ‘America, the gift shop”, the premise was: If George Bush’s foreign policy had a souvenir shop, what would it sell? This work was shown at the Center for photography at Woodstock. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Wallpaper, The London Times amongst others. He has exhibited worldwide.

Phillip Toledano is an experimental research scientist studying fantastic and absurd freaks. He sedates the creatures and removes them from their cages to pose them for archival photos.

At the beginning of 2001, I began taking pictures of recently abandoned offices, and the things people had left behind. This project was more than photography for me. It was economic archeology. America has not suffered such a vertiginous economic collapse since the 1930′s, and I wanted to document the human cost, while it was happening. There is something very strange about walking into a recently abandoned office. The heavy, Pompeii-like stillness, punctuated only by the occasional sound of the air-conditioning, turning itself on. A coat-hanger waiting patiently for a coat. A limp happy-birthday balloon on the floor. A drawer stuffed with take-out menus. Everywhere, signs of life, interrupted.

-Phillip Toledano