”Why hasn’t anyone made a proper monograph with Tom Benson’s amazing images?” That was a question that pestered me for many, many years. I first saw his trippy collages on record covers and in the phenomenal Radium Magazine back in the 80s. Surreal, majestic, totally unique in every way, evoking dark fantasies and strange sexual pathologies. Tom Benson became an enigma, and even more so after his death in 1999. No major shows, very few catalogs, rumours and ”Yeah, I’ve heard about him but that’s it…” That didn’t suffice. Not for me. In 2013, I traveled to Gothenburg and Varberg to go through prints and things together with Benson’s widow, Marja Sipola Cuss. I was amazed at how much great – and unseen – stuff there was. And that’s how Tom Benson: Visionary began as a project.
Today, the book was sent to the printers and I opened up for ”pre-ordering” it on the Trapart site. A very satisfying feeling. Of course, I know I’m very partial but I would still like to recommend buying the book and enjoying Benson’s extraordinary world. There was no-one like him and there still isn’t.
Here’s the sales blurb and the links in question. Thank you.
”Tom Benson (1935-1999), Sweden’s surrealist master, created a multitude of phantasmagoric images based on fictive characters and dream-like landscapes. Using his powerful photographs in mind-altering collages, he opened up and displayed inner vistas saturated with mystery, adventure and eroticism. Benson’s rich visions mercilessly catapult the viewer into unchartered psychic and emotional territories filled with intelligence, humorous twists and turns, sexual fantasies, eerie people and spooky environments – all elegantly woven together in a turbulent tapestry celebrating the human imagination.
Tom Benson: Visionary contains 80 of his strongest images, and also includes an introduction by Carl Michael von Hausswolff, an interview with Benson’s widow Marja Sipola Cuss, and personal mementos by Benson’s muses and models Annika von Hausswolff, Helena Eriksson and Lotta Antonsson.”
To buy the book, please go HERE!
Please note that there’s a very limited, hardcover edition/version which comes with a mind-blowing print of an image of William Burroughs dreaming away (image below). Only 23 copies available. You can find that version HERE!
