Infiltrate: review (or a view, really)...
By Bigna Pfenninger. The Gelman portrait by Emin.

Selection is a tricky concept, and, historically, its use has certainly left the world with a few rather unpleasant legacies. Revolutionising the understanding of human development by calling it "natural" has brought about some of the crudest political ideas. Groups of people, whether religious or not, who consider themselves as the selected out of the lot haven't really contributed much towards a better together. And even in that great vogue of individualism, where choice and opinion are worshipped as the last recourse to stand out from the ever increasing number of people wandering the planet, selection hasn't become much more refined in its process. But maybe this is, because selection is never political but always personal. The desert-island list.

Selecting - and mind you, that is personal - invariably includes a brief moment of brutality. It seems, in all its forms, to start out with a little sharp unpleasantness. Of course, routine, repetition and speed make it easier and given limits and needs justify the product. But in that very moment where you have finished gathering and stand in front of the compiled, ready to pick and chuck, there is a cruel stitch. The awareness of the intrinsic loss may grow way beyond reason, a minor uncertainty can trigger images of cruellest injustice and dizziness sets in when even the initial sense of starting to collect seems at stake. Surely, you get used to this instant, too. Yet that is missing the point. Because the stitch is fantastic. It is exactly for this stitch that one could think of going about selecting differently.

And how gorgeous it is what Mr. Gelman seems to have done with it. "Infiltrate". Forget all the conspiratorial associations of the title, the exclusive insider knowledge and the prescriptive choice it implies. Gelman's selection is not a conclusion. It is a suggestion. Or many suggestions, for that matter. 23 New York design studios or designers were chosen with the honest acknowledgement that there are a mere 50,000 others working in or for the city. No criterion such as experience, success or status applies to all of the featured contributors, apart from, quite likely, the belief that their work is of a distinct value. And, to stretch the thought, you might agree or not. It is a deliberate offer, a personal best-in-show contest without a jury or a winner. Some names are well known; others are not. The interviews preceding their work are legible or not - due to the content or the typeface. What is said is unedited; it isn't narrowed down nor rearranged. Some of it isn't even finished and interviews continue on the net.

Fair enough, one might be tempted to think that this isn't a selection at all. But it must be. The book weighs 3lb 4oz, has a diagonal length of an average-sized inner forearm, is slightly bendable and this certainly is a limitation that asks for a choice. Or actually, no. The reverse conclusion applies. 3lb 4oz is a selection in itself, one done in the same spirit as all the other choices making up the book, a selection by generosity. (The generosity of an insider talking to insiders, which intrinsically rules out any possibility of corporate bullshitting. An honest shot at talent and democratic patronism. An invitation, really, rather than another pretentious attempt at a fear-inducing style bible.) 3lb 4oz make you hold the book straight and let it open itself wherever it thinks could be a good start. Linearity isn't asked for. No dualistic good and bad. Drop those four paragraphs that don't interest you in the least. It doesn't matter. The interviewed himself might have just been told off for holding an endless monologue. And so the book's relentlessness becomes an opportunity to drop the odd part, to select, for once, without the brutal moment of a possible misjudgement. After all, not much is more beautiful than not having to look at something.