Erika Ritzel | CHANGING HANDS

Changing Hands Book (Edition of 400)

The photographs in the Changing Hands series are about objects for sale, spaces they are located in, and the people the items once belonged to. The objects that loved ones once cherished are no longer useful or desirable to the family. The family members then hire a company to organize an estate sale. During the sale, the home is transformed into a store and items are staged and marketed for the customers. The items and belongings are now detached, waiting for new owners. I see the personal items as substitutes for the people they once belonged to and document them before they are sold.

Click on images to see excerpt from the book.

Hardcover: 64 pages, 42 images

Book Dimensions: 11 x 11"

ISBN: 978-0-692-20746-8

$35.00 + $5.00 shipping

To purchase the book, please contact the artist at erika@erikaritzel.com or find it on Amazon.

1/10

Book Review by George Slade -

These are not the photographs of a shopper. Erika Ritzel may enjoy the occasional estate sale purchase, but her artist's eye is drawn to the conundrum of identity generated by these events. What sat on, in, or next to what, the incidental choreography of everyday life that brought character to these houses, has been thrown to the winds by the staging company. For their purposes the house becomes one big salesroom, and Grandma's armoire becomes a display fixture for miscellaneous tchotchkes, unsold inventory from other estates. These alienated, depersonalized spaces leave one wistful, bemused, and quite possibly sympathetic to the distressed house spirits clamoring just out of sight.