Kahn & Selesnick is an artistic collaboration between Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick, photographers and installation artists who create haunting photos that combine the abundant beauty found in nature with the surreal whimsy of men pushing themselves to the limit. In their Truppe Fledermaus series, excerpted below, their photos are an invitation to a carnival that disappears with the seasons, and their old-timey touches create worlds that seem like they could’ve existed, even if they didn’t.
The band Shearwater got much more interesting, art-wise, once they started working with Kahn & Selesnick (the duo has shot several of their album covers including Rook, Animal Joy, and the current Distant Travelers) — look at the video for their Xiu Xiu cover “I Luv the Valley OH!,” art-directed by Kahn and Selesnick, which takes inspiration from the artists’ current project, the NASA-commissioned Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea.
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick
Image credit: Kahn & Selesnick