KIM THUE: Lode
“Exhilarating and thought-provoking, Lode is a transgressive hymn to human frailty and obdurate nature. A problematising document for our problematic times. A compassionately compiled exploration by a bold artist, coming to terms with himself and his work by means of willed exertion.”
During the 2020 pandemic-imposed lockdown and subsequent loss of his job bordering a paralysed music industry, Kim Thue grabbed the rarely presented opportunity away from everyday distractions to re-engage with his otherwise neglected photography. Drawers full of previously unseen negatives and contact sheets generated from extensive travels from his home in London to far flung corners of China, Iceland, Spain and Sierra Leone had become an unresolved issue sitting in stalemate at the back of his mind for years. Feeling the need to confront and draw a line under the existing work to move forward, Thue took a deep dive from an unregimented platform, undergoing an editing process that was intuitive, personal and experimental in nature. The result of his efforts is the gritty, multi-layered collection of works now defined as the photographer’s astounding second monograph, Lode.
In some respects, Lode can be regarded as a logical follow-up to Thue’s acclaimed and long out-of-print debut Dead Traffic (2012) while still being a project isolated in its own right. It is a continuation of his uncompromising photographic style, yet Lode takes further steps away from documentary traditions towards a broader, more poetic and open-ended experience. At its core, it is a book devoid of classic narrative conventions that confidently speaks to viewers while consciously allowing room for resonance and interpretation. In the words of Edward Dimsdale, whose perceptive essay closes the book, the experience of Lode “is as much registered in the guts as it is processed through the visual cortex.” What emerges from its 248 pages is not an “easily assimilated travelogue. Rather, it is an introspective, complex meditation on inequality, configured by broken links and restlessness, which, once carefully digested, reveals traces of doubt within the journeying photographer himself.”
“Lode is an impressive and powerful mixture of portraits, landscapes, nature pictures, still lifes and abstractions. A radical toss up that does not leave the viewer unmoved.” —Ulrich Rüter, LFI (Leica Fotografie International)
“Though [Lode] is something that you could loosely describe as a travelogue, it offers something more: it brings together the often abstracted routes through which we experience the spaces we pass through and presents them as an in-cohesive act of cohesion.” —Wes Foster, Then There Was Us
“[Lode] could primarily be a documentary book about the damned of the Earth, the abandoned, the forgotten, the despised. But, even so, it is much more—a downbeat, poetic, and burning song.” —Fabien Ribery, L’intervalle
“Pulsating, undulating, rich, and gravid with an unknown and indiscernible thing. [. . .] Deep wounds, each with a story to tell, each a vessel for complex knotted life experience.” —Alex Prior, Photobook Reviewer
KIM THUE (born September 1980) grew up in Grindsted, a small Danish town located on the Jutland peninsula. In his late teens he relocated to the UK where he obtained a BA (Hons) in Editorial Photography from the University of Brighton. His work has been exhibited internationally in places like the Freelens Galerie in Germany, Les Rencontres d’Arles in France and the Tianshui Photography Biennale in China. He is the author of two photographic monographs and his imagery has been printed in leading publications, including VICE, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Harper’s Magazine and LFI (Leica Fotografie International). In recent years he has also contributed artwork to numerous music albums and directed promo videos for renowned bands such as Iceage and Lush. Formerly represented by the Italian photo agency Prospekt, he now operates independently from his home in London, where he continues to focus on long-term book projects as well as editing the work of other photographers.
EDWARD DIMSDALE is a photographer, writer and Professor of Art and Contemporary Visual Culture at the Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts.
Published by Skeleton Key Press, November 2022
ISBN 978-82-692410-4-4
20 x 27 cm (7.8 x 10.6 in)
Silkscreened hardcover, 248 pages, 140 duotone plates
Edited by Kim Thue and Martin Andersen/Andersen M Studio
Book design by Martin Andersen/Andersen M Studio
Cover design by Kim Thue
Essay by Edward Dimsdale
Text in English
First Edition limited to 500 copies
