Like a One-Eyed Cat: Photographs by Lee Friedlander, 1956-1987

This volume, a companion to an exhibition, covers 30 years of Friedlander's work in black-and-white. Like his peers Gary Winogrand and Diane Arbus, Friedlander bears the influence of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, often portraying ``the American landscape and its conditions.'' His camera uses geometric lines of girders, fence posts and trees to suggest the order he perceives in seemingly desultory scenes, passing judgment on the random or banal. Also included are nudes, self-portraits and stark images from commercial assignments--portraits of unnaturally devoted factory workers and hilariously alienated white-collar laborers. In a trenchant reconsideration of 20th century photography and Friedlander's role in it, Seattle Art Museum curator Slemmons links the photographer's ``gestural freedom'' to a youthful fascination with the jazz improvizations of Charlie Parker and Count Basie, who are pictured here as well. (Mar . )