Sunday Star Times
MARTI FRIEDLANDER
By Leonard Bell
Auckland University Press, $75
IN A list of this country's artists, photographer Marti Friedlander belongs near the top, among those who have investigated the universals at its heart. Like Michael King, with whom she produces Moko:Maori tattooing in the 20th century, she has done her work in the thick of things, unafraid of historical or contemporary issues. Yet this watcher of humanity everywhere retains enough distance to ask the hard questions - sympathetically.
Leonard Bell suggests this is because she's an outsider - or was when she emigrated from London, where she'd grown up in a Jewish orphanage and begun an apprenticeship in photography. Although Bell's book is searching and knowledgeable about Friedlander's art, the 117 intensely worked, remarkable, unforgettable plates tell her story, and the story of her world, better than anything else could do.