Details of the World

A half-ruined Beirut apartment building from the early '80s, its parquet floor hanging precipitously over a debris-strewn courtyard, is juxtaposed with a shot of the mellow parquet of a gallery in which a lush European landscape hangs. Such contrasts are just some of the Details of the World documented by Paris-based photographer Sophie Ristelhueber. As curator Cheryl Brutvan of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts shows in this masterfully produced little book (7 x 41/2), Ristelhueber's largely people-less landscapes whether natural, extreme, man-made or ruined take on larger resonance by ingenious changes in scale, framing and setting among the 81 color and 64 b&w shots here. Ristelhueber's work is a step toward a truly global imagination. ( Jan)