The Fourth Wall explores the influence of Hindi cinema on everyday life in India and how this fictional world infiltrates into reality. The book consists of a series of photographs in combination with quotes taken from Indian newspapers that contain a similar duality as the images; a suggestion of fictional events predicting and dictating real events.

"What strikes me most in Max’s work is that he has developed a new approach, something I haven’t seen before. He works within a documentary context yet leans towards staged photography, always expressing a form of theatricality. This grey area in between is where Max’s images find themselves."

(Dirk Braeckman, The Word magazine, June 2012)

Blindfold

Tunnel

"Due to the intricate lighting and compositions, Max Pinckers (1988) creates images with several layers of depth, or moments of depth, that present themselves as stepping stones for the eye of the beholder. Perspective is used to create a varying range of folded, harmonica-like spaces. As a result, the photographs seem to depict a space that is alive, like a forest, but also a space that functions as a theater set or the set of a photo studio. The effect of these compositions is double: they reinforce the impression of an artificially arranged space, but at the same time they enhance a feeling of poor housing and entrapment. They evoke the wondrous creative power of artists, but they also remind us of our own meager attempts to shape ourselves into presentable beings. We meet anonymous cyclists, lady boys and amateur bodybuilders, all trying to become somebody new or trying to look like somebody else. Already, Max Pinckers’ oeuvre shows itself as a baroque mirror palace, always poetic, buzzing with secret meaning, never forgetting to be deeply human. And then we meet the photograph of the well: a strangely lit hole, a sculptural proposal, an official emptiness, a new frame for the image to be."

(Hans Theys, .tiff magazine, Fotomuseum Antwerpen, March 2012)

See more images from the series on Class of 2012 | Max Pinckers on Self Publish Be Happy.

About the book:

I've already made a few dummy versions of the book, like the one in the video above (first dummy printed on 25 June 2012). These versions were printed and bound in a very basic manner, but everyone who has held it in their hands was pleasantly affected. Just to be clear: the new and definite design of the book will look and feel different compared to the dummy! It will be entirely printed on newspaper, bound in a different way and will have a thicker cover. The sequencing and content will stay pretty much the same.

The specifications for the definite book are as followed:

Full color

192 pages, 195 x 273 mm

45g newspaper print at Dijkman Offset, Amsterdam

Bounding: glued

Cover: cardboard, 300 gm2, 760 x 275 mm (cover with flaps) 2 sides, full color

250 signed, dated and numbered limited editions with a small customization. Only available through supporting the project here on Ulule.com

The Fourth Wall book dummy, GRADUATION, School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium, 2012

Book launch at the Brakke Grond, Amsterdam:

If the book reaches its goal, it will be launched at the exhibition 'Mamihlapinatapai: A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start' on the 5th of October 2012 at the de Brakke Grond in Amsterdam. Pick up your copy there or have it shipped to you soon after the opening week.

An exhibition by Max Pinckers & Michiel Burger  with a spatial intervention by Gauthier Oushoorn.

Opening: 5 October 2012 at 17:00h 

Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond, Nes 45, 1012 KD Amsterdam
Running from 6 October to 4 November 2012  Mon to Fri 11h00 – 18h00  Sat & Sun 13h00 – 18h00  Admission free

GRADUATION installation view Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty, from the series The Fourth Wall. Transparency print in afzelia wood lightbox (by Gauthier Oushoorn), 110 x 95 cm, unique edition + 1AP GRADUATION, School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium, 2012

Installation view, GRADUATION, School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium, 2012

The Fourth Wall has been exhibited at the following shows:

2012 Wonderful World, GENTHOF, Bruge, Belgium
2012 GRADUATION, School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium
2012 .tiff, Young Belgian Talent by FoMu Antwerp, de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2012 A Whitsun Wedding, curated by Hans Theys, Welle, Belgium

The Fourth Wall has received the following awards:

2012 Nomination, The Photo Academy Award, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2012 Winner Horlait-Dapsens prize, School of Arts (KASK), Ghent, Belgium