Vince Leo: Remembered As A Blessing: Visitation Stones In Jewish Cemeteries

The Jewish ritual of leaving a stone or pebble at the grave site of a loved one is ancient, a visible way of remembering the departed by means of a humble quotidian object. Vince Leo began taking photographs of these "visitation stones" after several family members died in quick succession, as he found himself enacting the rituals of grief over and over. Placing a stone is simple but powerful gesture that connects the living to the dead. Remembered as a Blessing contains 30 of Leo's black and white photographs, which honor these as the complex objects they are: simultaneously hard, durable, pieces of matter and embodiments of ineffable spiritual relationships, often among many generations of people. As Daniel Mendelsohn reflects in his essay, "clusters of larger and smaller stones placed atop the tombstone itself themselves suggest family groups: parents with their children, young siblings clustered around their older brothers or sisters. Little families of stone, irresistibly calling to mind the families that now lay beneath them." Each image fuses light, focus, viewpoint, reflection, and magnification into a moment in which the ordinary and the symbolic coexist.

• | Author: Vince Leo
• | Publisher: Mw Editions
• | Publication Date: Apr 04, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 79 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1735762989
• | ISBN-13: 9781735762982