Evidence by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel

• 大海撈針：兩人在多達數百萬張用於科學實驗、犯罪現場、工程測試或工業意外的官方紀錄照片中進行篩選。
• 精準提煉：最終只精選出 59 張 具備強烈視覺張力與荒誕感的黑白照片。 

• 移除所有文本：兩位藝術家去除了照片原本的標題、日期、圖說與出處說明。
• 製造敘事真空：當這些原本背負著「絕對客觀、透明證據」功能的圖像被孤立出來，以兩兩相對的跨頁形式並置時，原有的科學或法律意義便完全失效，取而代之的是一種帶有超現實、幽默、甚至陰謀論色彩的神祕氛圍。
• 讀者共同完成作品：面對這些失去前因後果的畫面（例如：滿是泡沫的房間、身穿防護服的怪異舉動、沙地上的火箭殘骸），讀者必須主動參與並建構屬於自己的文本與意義。 

• 1977 年初版：由兩人以虛構的出版印記 Clatworthy Colorvues 自行出版。
• 隨後再版：包括 2003 年、2017 年的再版；以及近期由著名藝術出版社 D.A.P. 推出極力還原 1977 年初版質感的全新精裝版本。 

Evidence (1977) is a landmark work co-created by American photographers Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, and is recognized as one of the most influential and important conceptual photography books in the history of photography. It completely subverts the definition of traditional documentary photography and transforms photography from an "objective record" into a visual puzzle about context and interpretation.

Martin Parr, a British documentary photography master, once praised this book as: "One of the most beautiful, profound and confusing photography books in existence, an endless visual magic box."

Creative background and image source

Between 1975 and 1977, Sultan and Mandel were funded by the National Foundation for the Arts (NEA). They spent two years delve into more than 100 government agencies, scientific research units, enterprises and military and police archives across the United States (including NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lawrence Livemore National Laboratory in California, Los Angeles Police Department, etc.) 

Fishing for a needle in the sea: Two people screened through millions of official recorded photos used for scientific experiments, crime scenes, engineering tests or industrial accidents.

Precise refinement: In the end, only 59 black-and-white photos with strong visual tension and absurdity were selected.

 Core concept: overturning "photography is real"

The core concept of this photography book is to deconstruct the vein of images:

Remove all text: Two artists removed the original title, date, picture description and source description of the photo.

Create a narrative vacuum: When these images, which originally carry the function of "absolutely objective and transparent evidence", are isolated and juxtaposed in two opposite cross-page forms, the original scientific or legal meaning is completely invalidated, replaced by a divine atmosphere with surrealism, humor, and even conspiracy theory.

Readers complete the work together: In the face of these pictures of losing the cause and effect (such as a room full of foam, strange behavior in protective clothing, rocket wreckage on the sand), readers must take the initiative to participate and construct their own text and meaning.

Publication and version information

Due to the lofty status of this book in contemporary photography, the original version has long been hard to find and has been reprinted several times over the years:

Early 1977 edition: Self-published by two people with a fictional publication mark Clatworthy Colorvues.

Subsequent reprints: including reprints in 2003 and 2017; and recently by the famous art publishing house D.A.P. Launched a new hardcover version that strives to restore the texture of the early 1977 edition.