Gary Schneider: HandBook

“I have made handprint-portraits since 1993, I consider them to be as expressive as any portrait of a face, more private, and possibly more revealing.”—Gary Schneider

HandBook is a print-on-demand artist’s book. It is the culmination of seventeen years of Schneider’s commitment to making portraits of hands without the use of a camera. In this form, HandBook traces a unique thread that connects the literal hand of the subject and that of the artist to a book object produced via the apex of contemporary digital printing technologies. For Schneider—who in a former incarnation was known as a master of chemical darkroom printing—this adaptation of digital printing technologies earmarks a profound and telling shift in the contemporary arts and publishing arenas. This special limited-edition artist book is the culmination of one of the first collaborations between Aperture, a photographer (Schneider), and a print-on-demand press (Blurb). HandBook is limited to twenty-five signed and numbered copies, accompanied by a signed and numbered print, presented in a slipcase.

Each limited-edition print is hand-packed with great care and ships from New York within 3–5 days.