Like the photos of crosses in this abundant collection, author and photographer Kelly Klein manages to illuminate the intersection of two edges. On one edge, she brings forth reverence for this ancient symbol of Christian devotion and sacrifice. On the other edge she dares to dally in irreverence, not allowing her vision to be muddied with Christian dogma, etiquette, or protocol. As a result, she presents the cross within a telephone pole as respectfully as she captures the cross that dangles from a nun's habit. In a stunning piece of double photography, we see Malcolm X's FBI file overlaid across his mug shot. Blend the two images together and there's a cross stamped across his heart like an ominous target.

While conservative Christians will no doubt find some of the images offensive, most viewers will find them simultaneously beautiful and unsettling. In fact, the cross is meant to be a symbol of contradiction, notes Kelly Klein in her introduction. "Even within Christianity it is paradoxical: an image transformed from an instrument of torture and death into a symbol of hope, life and love." --Gail Hudson


From Booklist
Photographer and fashion designer Klein's eye for the fetching image is good and intelligent. The photographs in this thematic album, most of them printed to fill an entire 10-by-12-inch page or two, seem selected for beauty's sake and to emphasize the cross as both form and religious symbol. The cross is implicit in the human body: stand with feet together and arms at right angles to the torso, and you are a cross. Time and again, that physical fact invests a particular photo with meaning. A bare-chested young man pulls a leather helmet over his head; a cross of light glimmering through the mask's nose aperture is echoed by the youth's upper arms and torso and, hovering over his apparently purposive gaze, conjures the militancy of a crusader. Virtually every picture, black-and-white or color, fashion photo or documentary snapshot, is as dramatically suggestive, though often more subtly, and as ponderable. This is photography as theology. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
In her lavishly produced third book, accomplished editor and photographer Kelly Klein celebrates the myriad incarnations of the cross in photography of the past century. Here are images of the cross in both nature and the man-made world, in precious decorative objects and industrial architecture, in the shapes of the human body and the shapes of shadows. These pictures show how this most potent symbol can be transformed into the sacred, the ordinary, the profane, depending on its use and surroundings. This is the first book ever to distill the icon of the cross to its pure aesthetic essence, to explore its universal beauty. Photographs from the best photographers of the 20th century -- Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Fabien Baron, Erwin Blumenfeld, Nan Goldin, David Hockney, Horst, Andre Kertesz, Steven Klein, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Duane Michals, Tina Modotti, Francois Nars, Len Prince, Man Ray, Herb Ritts, Michael Roberts, Sebastiao Slagado, David Seidner, Bert Stern, Phil Stern, Paul Strand, Mario Testino, Michael Thompson, Ellen von Unwerth, Albert Watson, Bruce Weber, Edward Weston, among many others, are featured. A preface by Kelly Klein, as well as brief texts from a wide range of voices, including best-selling author Father Andrew Greeley, Barneys Creative Director Simon Doonan, W magazine's Chairman Patrick McCarthy, and New York Times contributor Bob Morris, speak of the cross's intriguing and unexpected meanings. Exquisitely designed and printed, Cross is the must-have book for the photography and fashion worlds and anyone interested in the visualization of a symbolic form. Kelly Klein's royalties will be donated to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In her lavishly produced third book, accomplished editor and photographer Kelly Klein celebrates the myriad incarnations of the cross in photography of the past century. Here are images of the cross in both nature and the man-made world, in precious decorative objects and industrial architecture, in the shapes of the human body and the shapes of shadows. These pictures show how this most potent symbol can be transformed into the sacred, the ordinary, the profane, depending on its use and surroundings. This is the first book ever to distill the icon of the cross to its pure aesthetic essence, to explore its universal beauty.

Photographs from the best photographers of the 20th century — Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Fabien Baron, Erwin Blumenfeld, Nan Goldin, David Hockney, Horst, Andre Kertesz, Steven Klein, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Duane Michals, Tina Modotti, Francois Nars, Len Prince, Man Ray, Herb Ritts, Michael Roberts, Sebastiao Slagado, David Seidner, Bert Stern, Phil Stern, Paul Strand, Mario Testino, Michael Thompson, Ellen von Unwerth, Albert Watson, Bruce Weber, Edward Weston, among many others, are featured.

A preface by Kelly Klein, as well as brief texts from a wide range of voices, including best-selling author Father Andrew Greeley, Barneys Creative Director Simon Doonan, W magazine's Chairman Patrick McCarthy, and New York Times contributor Bob Morris, speak of the cross's intriguing and unexpected meanings.

Exquisitely designed and printed, Cross is the must-have book for the photography and fashion worlds and anyone interested in the visualization of a symbolic form.

Kelly Klein's royalties will be donated to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

FROM THE CRITICS

Richard Corliss - Time