Erica Baum

In the past twenty years, photographer Erica Baum (born 1961 in New York, where she lives and works) has become increasingly well known for creating new vernacular poetry from found printed material. While Baum's light touch with found poetry has become her signature, her real work lies in dogged investigation. Like a miner working a deposit of precious metal, she begins by identifying prospects—card catalogues, player piano rolls, Viewmaster slides, novels, even parlor games—and speculates on the productive vein, the new relevance to visual culture they might yet contain. She chips away over time, and only completes such photographic series when the materials stop yielding images that, to Baum, are useful for the contemporary.