Dear Martin

Dear Martin reproduces a cache of found, uncaptioned self-portraits made by an anonymous photographer in the late 1960s: a man alone on a rooftop, photographing himself in a series of bikini briefs against the chain-link fencing and canvas screens of the building.

With no captions or context, the images ask the viewer to identify with the man's static, repeated performance and to guess at why and how he staged it, working alone, aware of the architecture's lines as much as his own body. Ampersand Gallery, Portland, published the photographs as a small-edition book to coincide with a 2015 exhibition; the collection belongs to artist and collector Jason Brinkerhoff.

The book sits within a strain of vernacular-photography publishing, in which galleries and collectors recirculate anonymous snapshot archives as artist books, prizing the unresolved authorship and private performance captured in images never meant for public view.