Some interesting magazines
Posted: December 27, 2017 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: Anna Block, Halogénure, Ibero American photography, Magazines, Migrant, Muga, Pewen cuadernos de fotografia, Photography, Russian photography, Violet Inner Vision 1 CommentLeaving aside the books to talk about some photography magazines that are really worth a look, and what a better time than the new year to subscribe or offer a subscription.
So let’s start by mentioning the new French/Belgian photography magazine « Halogénure » which has just published its third issue. This is a biannual journal, published by a small group of enthusiasts whose desire is to show a silver and alternative photography of quality that struggles to find its place in other mediums. The magazine is presented in the form of three thematic notebooks gathered by a strip for a generosity of pages that goes, for the moment, from 136 for the first issue to 168 for the third. The quality is in every way excellent, whether in the editorial assumed choices, in the layout and in the print quality. All of this reminds me the excellent magazine of the 80s « Camera International » in which portfolios were very important and beautifuly presented, although it was obviously not that much dedicated to alternative photography. In this magazine, we can find, amongst others, substantial interviews in which we learn a lot, essays on the photobook world, portfolios of Belgian photographers (which is not to displease me), but above all, everything in a generous form, the interviews are long and developed, portfolios are consistent, far from a few images shown out of context. This magazine is for the better of photography, and you should consider to support it.
More info : https://halogenure.com/
The second project I want to talk about is the Spanish collection « Pewen Cuadernos de Fotografía ». It is not strictly speaking a magazine, but rather a small series of monographs devoted to Ibero-American photographers. On the initiative of Ros Boisier and Leo Simoes, Muga is a small publishing house that produces books in very small print run, each volume of this series is limited to 60 copies. We find for each volume a simple but effective layout that favors photography. The brown cover reveals nothing of the interior and it is always a surprise to discover an author hitherto unknown to me. This collection is not far from the beautiful collection of Café Royal Books dedicated to English photography and for an equally affordable price, it is an opportunity to build a beautiful collection of books on South American photography. Many numbers are out of print now, but it’s not too late to subscribe to forthcoming issues.
More info : http://mugaproject.com/pewen-cuadernos-de-fotografia/
The third issue of the « Migrant Journal » has just been published and three more are announced in this collection of six issues. As its title indicates, this magazine focuses on the very actual and important theme of migration through the world, and proposes to analyze the notion of migration across several major themes. The editorial of the first issue began as follows:
« What will it talk about ?
Migration.
You mean the migrant crisis ?
That and other things. Migration is everywhere, it’s time we realise it again. It’s time writers, spatial thinkers and designers, artists, researchers of all kind get together to re-think the concept of migration. »
Each theme is announced from one volume to another and operates on the process of an open call for participation. Publishing two issues per year, the quality of this journal is constituted by the variety of answers, photographers (not that much), designers, researchers who offer reflections on the subject. The topics covered so far are « Across country » for number 1, « Wired capital » for number 2 and « Flowing grounds » for number 3. Each number, except for the first one, out of print, is available on their website.
More info : https://migrantjournal.com/
The Russian photographic scene has been very active recently and a new magazine has just been released : « Violet INNER VISION » is published under the coordination of Anna Block. The publication still remains confidential since the print is only 40 copies. The first issue was published in July 2017 and contains photographs of Nikita Khalkin, Katherina Sadovsky and Andrey Krapivin. Each copy is signed by the three authors and Anna Block and contains a small print, also signed and numbered. This magazine is sober with an elegant layout that, again, values the photographs. Beyond the discovery of these authors, still unknown to us, there is an interesting attempt to manipulate the narrative form that combines the different photographs. The images follow one another and we do not know, first,who is the author, even if a style emerges from each series. We then witness a narrative with three voices, images responding to each other to create an additional meaning. The explanations are given to us only in the colophon. The subject of this first issue focuses on the images considered as tabooed, blasphemous, pornographic or morbid. A new magazine which will be interesting to keep an eye on.
More info : http://annablock.ru/blog/violet-inner-visions/
The distances between us, by Sarah Pollman
Posted: September 17, 2017 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: anonymity, graves, memory, New England, Photography, Sarah Pollman, the distances between us Leave a commentFrom memory after death, Sarah Pollman gives us, in this book, a series, like a documentary work, about the remaining memory of the missing ones and the role of the graves.
Throughout the world, cemeteries are places of collective memory and each grave allows individual recollection. One comes to remember the moments spent with the deceased and, perhaps, to try to establish a relationship, a form of communication. Perhaps each one secretly hopes an answer to the questions he could not have asked…
In front of these tombstones, the work of Sarah Pollman, divided into two parts, refers to the notion of anonymity and universality. Except in case of cremation, graves are everyone’s ultimate residency. The first part was shot in New England cemeteries, graves whose only inscriptions refer to the notion of parents : « father » and « mother » for the sole mention of the memory of those whose status was to have been parents. No epitaph, but their only condition of couple, whose last will was probably to be buried together. Photographed in the dawning light that reveals the delicacy of the memory engraved in the stone, as a last attention by the children. These graves remain anonymous for anyone other than their descendants, but they become universal, as the parents of everyone of us. This work reminds me the old series of Sophie Calle, shot in California in 1978.
The two series are enclosed with a double blank page, a space of recollection like the silence that seizes us when we approach a grave, a mix of embarrassment and pain.
The second series is a succession of black and white photographs, showing numbers on different supports, metal, wood, concrete… slight remaining traces of forgotten graves. Again, all sign of identity disappears, and it just remains a file number. Sarah Pollman focus here on the cemeteries of hospitals, prisons and hospices, where are buried persons whose body has not been reclaimed. These photographs are touching because, those persons have been forgotten in death as they were during their life, these images evoke the sadness of a life of solitude (or at least at the end). No one will come to mourn on these graves, and yet this one idea would make me want to do it, as if to testify to these anonymous people a kind of last tribute.
In the middle of the book, a text separates the two series of photographs. It is writen at the first person and seems to be a personal experience of Sarah Pollman, revealing thus, the title of the work, when it is evoked what remains, finally, weeks later, when the snow falls… the distances between us.
A last thought comes to my mind as I go through this book. This is the quality of printing which is rather weak, as for, once again, to emphasize the previous idea and to gives us, here, photos « without qualities » in the sense of Robert Musil book or in the form of a « book poor » as proposed by Daniel Leuwers.
Hardcover book published in 2016 by Trema Förlag. 20 x 28 cm, 56 pages, 28 photos color and black and white. Print run 400 copies.
More info : http://www.sarahpollman.com/the-distances-between-us
InselWesen by Mila Teshaieva
Posted: August 28, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: Föhr, InselWesen, insularity, Island, Mila Teshaieva, painting, photobooks, Photography Leave a commentIn 2013, the superb book « Promising waters » took us around the Caspian Sea to discover new post-Soviet states located around this inland sea. The new work of Mila Teshaieva reverse, this time, the proposal to make us discover an island and its inhabitants. Result of a two-year residency at the Museum Kunst der Westküste on the German island of Föhr in the North Sea, with this new series, Mila tries to understand what gathers and unites the people in their insularity (the title of the book is literally « being insular »).
It is never easy to arrive as a foreigner on an island, to enter a community without having acquired the codes. Thus you should take your time, give pledges to be accepted, and clearly, Mila has earned the trust of the islanders. She met locals and began his photographic work. A text, written by Marcus Lenz, in the book sums up this way to depict a territory : « The darkness sharpens your senses, suddenly you can hear the tiny sounds and you know where they’re coming from. You can see at night ». This is how we enter this world, Mila chose to literally paint with light his subjects. The photographs are made at night, they are very dark and we have to pay attention to explore the scene with characters and objects that are, in the darkness, revealed by a light brush. The photographic time is long, the image stretches and we are transported back in time. The characters are frozen, beyond all eternity, each focused on its task as if generations mingled to tell us the island. At no time we will cross a look and if sometimes it seems that one of them stare at us, his gaze pierces us and is already far behind us.
The choice of costumes and the use of light transform those images into paintings, particularly due to the effects of light and shade as found in Caravaggio or in some Flemish painters, but the reference to the painting also appears in a sense of déjà vu, like in Cezanne Card Players or Women at their toilette by Picasso, a sort of revisiting the history of painting ! Representation is clever, there is no need to show everything to say things. On the contrary, to represent is already taking sides, choosing what will be seen and deleting what is of no interest, putting in light, to finally understand what unites these men and women, to reach this timeless dimension, which, from universal becomes singular on this island and wwhich were the fundamentals of the community. A dimension that appears only to the one who will take the time, who will remain silent in the middle of the night to watch every gesture, every movement, to listen to every sound. The characters are revealed and nature comes to life, we discover the ancestral activities that were hunting and fishing, seasons, events, everything that was specific to the island despite the development of a seaside tourism resort in the early XIXth century. Any modernity is erased, as if the light only reveals that what lasts.
We leave this book as an imaginary world. We do not know if the story told was real or if we were asleep, just for a moment, while our imagination wandered. It remains however a few pictures, slightly unclear, of these bodies and objects that can be seen in the dark, and the feeling of coming back from a long journey in time.
The only frustration that remains at the end of this book is the desire to see the photographs in a larger size and high print quality. As for paintings, after seeing the book, we would like to see the work for real, to appreciate all the details and finesse. Of course, the offset process has difficulty to render the subtleties of lighting used.
Hardcover book published in 2016 by Kehrer Verlag, 23 x 21 cm, 96 pages, 38 color photos, texts in German and English by Marcus Lenz.
More info : http://www.milateshaieva.com/books
And : http://www.artbooksheidelberg.de/html/en/program/detail.html?ID=1027
A previous review of Mila Teshaieva’s Promising Waters : https://whoneedsanotherphotoblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/promising-waters-by-mila-teshaieva/
David’s House, by Alex Ingram
Posted: August 12, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: Alex Ingram, English photography, Pembrokeshire, photobooks, Photography, St Davids, Tyddewi, Wales Leave a commentSt Davids is a small village, at the end of the world (1841 inhabitants) where Alex spent a part of his childhood. Well, in fact, St Davids is a city ! I remember years ago, talking to an English friend about what is the difference between a city and a town, and he told me a city is a place with a cathedral. So St Davids is the smallest city of the United Kingdom, located at the westernmost point of the Pembrokeshire in Wales. The place takes its name from the settlement around the monastery that David, Saint Patron of Wales founded in the VIth century. The Welsh name « Tyddewi » means literraly David’s house, which is the title of the book.
As often, the places in recluse areas are like islands, and the people who live there form an united community surrounded by a strong landscape, mainly of rocky coasts facing the sea. The landscape is both a constituent element and a unifying element. The landscape and the people become one. The community consists of a delicate mix between a landscape that shapes men and men who shape the landscape. There are however no struggle here, but rather a sort of ballet, a dance of seduction, a common love between Man and Nature.
As a native from this city, Alex returned to his hometown to meet the locals. A neighbour, Dai Turner, was the starting point of this work : a desire to go to meet the people and to better understand them. During a slow work, we go side by side with Alex. We stop for a chat with someone we met, a proud man standing in his workshop, his tools on a wall, talking about his former life as a coxswain on a lifeboat, and who can, now, spend hours looking out at the sea ; or a retired farmer explaining his first date with the girl who’s gonna become his wife, on a boat to collect seagull’s eggs ! Both the portraits and the texts are touching and full of empathy. The portraits are very successful, and the texts provide some « extra time ». They are a complement which creates a synergistic effect. The quality of Alex as portraitist makes them beautiful, but mostly manages to make us understand that community. Photographed in situation, we perceive a link, something intangible that makes them part of a whole. All generations mingled, from older, settled on the land for generations, to younger, who have recently moved and have chosen this place by love. All of them stand proudly and look straight at us and say: yes, we are here and nothing will make us leave this city.
And between these portraits, we traverse the moor, we walk through the countryside, we follow a stream … and always come back to the sea. It must be said that three quarters of the area are made of rocky coasts. Life here is punctuated by the tides. We leave the Cathedral and we go to the fields, pass by a housing estate, we see an old abandoned caravan, toilets close to mobile-homes, farms… There is no doubt that this work is a representation « from the inside », which is offered by someone initiated to roads and detours. Again, the texts come back to mind, they form a kind of soundtrack that accompanies our walk and then, some words become evident : how could it be otherwise ?
The main economy of the town is tourism, but we do not perceive tourists, neither the area around the cathedral or some souvenirs shops. St Davids, as presented to us here, is the one those tourists who spend breezed along the beautiful coast of Pembrokeshire, will probably never see. They will not take the time necessary to understand this place. They will never see the bulb on a ceiling, or green beans freshly picked from the garden beside a cup of tea. Neither they will see all the villagers gathered in the village city ballroom around a mulled wine and the Welsh flag proudly hanged on the wall. Then the night finally falls on St Davids when silence settles. We perceive a light behind the blinds of a house, we look at the starry sky above the village and the sea remains in mind, as it all began and where it ends, as a final tribute to the missing at sea, common tragedies for such territories.
I might as well continue, talking about each image, listening to these stories, but the best is to preserve a little mystery. You will need to take the time to discover Tyddewi ; and with Alex Ingram as a guide, we can feel we have all grown up here!
Limited Edition Hardback (edition of 20) + 10″x8″ archival print, handmade , 21,5 X 28,5 cm , 114 pages, 55 colour images and paperback edition of 50, perfect bound.
« David’s House » has been shortlisted for the South West Graduate Photography Prize! The project will be exhibited alongside 6 other photographers at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane between 13th-16th October, with the opening night on Thursday 13th October, followed by further exhibitions in Bristol and Falmouth.
More info : http://www.alexingramphoto.com/
Another book by Alex Ingram previously reviewed : https://whoneedsanotherphotoblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/the-sociology-of-football-an-unconditional-love-by-alex-ingram-and-fc-volga-united-by-sergey-novikov/
More cars, clothes and cabbages, by Torsten Schumann
Posted: August 5, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: Cabbages, Cars, Clothes, German photography, Hannes Wanderer, Peperoni Books, photobooks, Photography, Torsten Schumann Leave a commentTorsten Schumann is a German photographer, born in 1975 in Dresden. Thus, until the age of 14, he grew up in German Democratic Republic. It has been said a lot about the communist bloc countries, but I have absolutely no idea what it could have represented to live in one of these countries. However I think that having experienced the transition of the unification of Germany leads to a very personal way of looking at the world. He started photography in the 90s, following various courses and began exploring public space, mainly in Germany.
Torsten could be considered a humorist, which is the sense of the foreword written by Hannes Wanderer, who published the book through his excellent publishing house Peperoni Books. Torsten likes to play with reality. He walks through the city, like everyone else, but it seems not to see the same things. He’s the kind of guy who, when you point your finger to show him something, turns his head to look at the other side. Nothing is more boring for him than the obvious!
This way of looking at the world transports us into a fantasy world. I can not help but think of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, in which Torsten would be the mysterious rabbit that we want to follow and let it guide us in this mysterious world that is behind the scenes. It is a story passer, a revealer of the world. He allows us to understand what hitherto remained mysterious to us, what we do not see because of lack of understanding. We look at the world with distance, as spectators behind the mirror, and thus we discover the « behind the scenes » of these public spaces we travel regularly without paying attention.
There is a kind of minimalism of the ordinary in the photographs in the book. And yet the compositions are very sophisticated. One wonders how the photographer have gotten there, and what patience it took him to capture these moments. The colors are right, framing affirmed. Everything or everyone finds his place. Obviously, this work questions once again the relationship between beauty in representation and beauty in life. The subjects of the photographs are not beautiful, far from it. This is an apology of nooks, waste, poorly finished bricolages, all the little abandoned places that bother us, that « spoil us the view », to turn them into paintings with precise compositions that we think just coming out of the workshop of a painter who would patiently reconstructed the scene from still moments. The captured characters are timeless, frozen for eternity in this pose somewhat ungainly and clumsy, but that makes them so endearing.
Torsten is a precise colorist who manipulates color values subtly, from a shimmer of bright colors to images of such neutral gray that you would think they’re black and white (one of my favorite is the one of a lower part of a building and garage with a bent woman who melts into the gray values of the building). And of course, he also cleverly uses the light that comes to saturate a detail or reveal the transparency of a shadow. Each photograph is so « rich » that it takes time to read and reread this book. With each reading, we discover a detail that we had not noticed before. We have to take the time to fully understand this representation of the world.
Really, this little facetious rabbit still holds some surprises!
Published by Peperoni Books in 2016. Beautiful pearl effect hardcover book, 24 x 28 cm, 96 pages, 55 color photographs.
More info : http://torstenschumann.de/
And the publisher’s site : http://peperoni-books.de/cars_clothes_cabbages_en.html
Body of work, by Bruce Connew
Posted: July 11, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: Bruce Connew, Horse, Horse breeding, Mare, New Zealand, photobooks, Photography, selfpublished Leave a comment
How to start talking about this book? Perhaps noting that this book is one of the weirdest that I have seen recently. In 2014, when Bruce went round the publishers, the answer was quite unanimous: this book cannot be published… too strong. What a strange answer! It is true that many publishers have become very cautious and unwilling to take any risks, despite the fact that it is their role. Some even ask photographers to participate in the production of their book through crowdfunding campaigns. We are far from a Robert Delpire who, against all American reluctance and with a resolutely avant garde editorial approach, published “Les Américains” by Robert Frank and “New York” by William Klein.
Let’s be back to our subject. No clues about the suject when we discover the book. A black linen cover with just the photographer’s name : Bruce Connew, followed by the title of the book : Body of work. We open the book on a new black page before arriving to the title page, inserted on a special light blue paper : this blue used by parents to repaint the room of the boy to come. The last page of the book, which includes a text from the author and the colophon is … pink, the same pink with which parents repaint the bedroom of the girl to come. Two ribbons to mark pages are of these same colors. I always like, when I discover a new book, to look at the title page, and then go through the colophon before interesting myself in the content itself.
We then return to the beginning of the book and, between two white pages, we find inserted a small photograph of wildflowers, like a torn page of a notebook or a diary like those used to note the daily tasks. And the first image appears on the following page. A large dark image on which we recognize the hoof and lower part of the leg of a horse and his erect penis. A slow rythm will settle through the pages, double pages alternating with blank ones, all in a certain dim light. Muscles tense, we are witnessing a beautiful ballet between the stallion and the mare. The book is violent and intense. He tells us about the reproductive process within the equine world. But beyond this, it is also the story of a fascination Bruce Connew had since a former photograph he saw a long time ago already. His first approach was still uncertain and one can imagine the surprise of the owner of the barn when Bruce told him about his plan! This is the way a new work emerges, there is a kind of intuition of the subject that is often difficult to formulate; this is classic, the subject will be built slowly. In the case of Bruce Connew, the idea of documenting the world of horse-breeding was full of presupposition, but after spending months scrutinizing the horse breeding process, he became attentive to every detail! And from that patience was born this superb book. You could almost miss an important aspect of the work, focused on the formalist photographs, shapes and light that glides on the fur. But taking the time to look at pictures, back and forward, you may discover all the sensitivity of this work that appears in the amazing gazes. Everything happens in the dark, you have to be constantly attentive to detect these tiny details. If the eyes are the mirror of the soul, Bruce asserts: Through mournful eyes, they would make known an understanding of their peculiar predicament.
The book is beautifully printed, which is necessary to render this special atmosphere of the barn in a dim light, we come to smell the musky smell of horses, the sweat, the semen. What was formerly related to economic issues simply becomes sensitive. For those who followed horse races and bets at bookmakers, you know the importance of filiation in the racehorses world, the temptation of a genetic optimization for the “perfect” animal with “absolute” qualities. But all that is set aside here and Bruce well says : I wonder now whether this was my construction, and sprang from somewhere other than what I witnessed in the breeding barn. His work is convincing because, at the end of his book, we ask ourselves the same question! I will probably never look at a mare the way I did before this book. And to be honest, it has taken me some time to really enter this book, but it is definitely worth a review.
And by the way, the 38 images of the series (size 800 x 532mm, frame size 830 x 562 mm) are available for international exhibitions, and I would love to see them, because, even if the book is beautiful, I would so much appreciate to see the large prints.
Hardcover book self published in 2015 in New Zealand ; 24 x 35 cm, black linen cover, 68 pages with 38 black and white photos. Signed and numbered in an edition of 600 copies.
More info : http://www.bruceconnew.com/books/#12-body-of-work
And : http://www.josefchladek.com/book/bruce_connew_-_body_of_work
From Russia with love, part II
Posted: June 20, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: Bogomolova, Chandra, fashion, Hubble, Lookbook, memories, Mirovskaya, Old family photographs and deep sky objects, photobooks, Photography, Russia, Russian photography, selfpublished 1 CommentFor the last few years we discover more and more photographers that came from Eastern Europe, especially Russia. This is certainly one of the positive effects of globalization that we can access this production. After my previous post, I wanted to come back on two great books recently discovered, which have in common to question the functioning and building of memory(ies).
The first is “Old family photographs and deep sky objects”, by Alla Mirovskaya. Superb self-published book that combines old photos from family albums with pictures of space made by the Hubble telescope and from Chandra Observatory.
At first sight, one might wonder why associate these two series, especially as Alla Mirovskaya mixes the captions. But it’s ultimately how we begin to find meaning. We realize that to be figurative as these two series are, they nonetheless unknown to us. Whether the constellations or the characters are only known through their representations. They contain the same vagueness while the images overlap and intermingle. Something appears in our imagination, which is not without recalling the montage of attractions theorized by S. M. Eisenstein. One does not only remain a spectator of the story, one seems to remember, alongside Alla when turning the pages of the album. Alla also explains that it is a bit to perpetuate the family tradition that she has done this work. One way to include this memory on paper, now abandoned to the computer.
What is also touching is this association of the closest and the further. This intimacy experienced through the families stories from which Alla Mirovskaya takes her matter, and the absolute distance that no human being will ever experience of the faraway space. It’s a big gap in the history of mankind.
This book is also a piece of the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. We see young pioneers at the Komsomol, leisures, community activities, groups. And also, the shadow of the Cold War with the choice to combine the intimate pictures of Russian families with the US space observation. Like was the twentieth century, two opposing cultures which both needed each other to exist. This past century is also reminded to us by the use of a few red tinted photographs which emphasizes the memory of the communist era !
One of the greatest quality of this book is, in my opinion, the opportunity for everyone to find his own story. This is somewhat a puzzle that everyone will have to rebuild, with different pieces of stories.
Hardcover selfpublished book published in 2016, 15 x 20 cm, 128 pages, 100 copies signed and numbered.
Buy the book at Tipi.
The second book I want to talk about here is “Lookbook” by Anastasia Bogomolova. Old boxes stored in a barn where memories will emerge from. Old clothes from her mother and elder sister, from the eighties and nineties, bought in Soviet stores or sewn at home with the help of patterns found in fashion magazines.
As a child, Anastasia liked to wear these clothes, skirts, blouses and shoes are the symbol of femininity to become for the pre-teenager girl. So Anastasia takes out, from these boxes, these old clothes to begin a journey in time. It becomes a role play to revisit these outfits. The poses are sophisticated, like in those old fashion magazines. Her hair combed, made-up, dressed, she poses in front of old colorful wallpapers from the Soviet era. The colors are acid, both for the clothes and the background. The two will meet in a shimmer of colors.
Just like in those old magazines, poses are supposed to be natural but they are not. Sometimes smiling, sometimes seductive, sometimes dreamy, Anastasia alternately charms us, seduces us, or stare at us with distance. She became actress of that first idea that she had of beauty, discovered in the fashion magazines of the seventies and eighties, questioning the social vision of femininity and sexuality. We find these magazines in the book as small reproductions interspersed, which bear witness to this past history. But where the old fashion photos, are only … fashion photographs, the photographs of Anastasia Bogomolova become canvas in a way like Cindy Sherman did before her. Anastasia is on stage to better look at herself in the process of comprehension of her memory, a way to recreate and to stage his memories. The intriguing effect is that the same woman appears on these photos, as was sometimes the same models found in the pages of these old fashion magazines.
From a personal point of view, this work also resonates with my own history. Indeed, I knew these magazines in the seventies, when, to raise me, my mother quit her job to be a seamstress at home. All around, at home, were these magazines, these pieces of fabric, these patterns, and I got used to the rhythm of the sewing machine …
Finally, and not least, this book is very funny. One goes through the pages with delight, it is a cure for melancholy (literally since this book is anything but black). We end it with joy, especially since it includes a poster: silk summer dress with blue and white strips, 1989. This is just what we need to prepare for summer.
Self-published softcover book, published in 2016, First edition of 90 signed and numbered copies, Design by Julia Borissova, Photographs, archive & texts by Anastasia Bogomolova, 21×28,5 cm, 40 pages+32 pages of inserts, Including poster 42×59,4 cm.
Read more : http://anabogomolova.viewbook.com/books
And a good ressource for Russian books : http://store.fotodepartament.ru/
Façade Démocratique, by David Nollet
Posted: May 16, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: 2008 crisis, Belgique, Belgium, Binche, Cape of Good Hope, carnival, David Nollet, Façade démocratique, photobooks, Photography 1 CommentWe know, since the last century, that for Belgians, a pipe is not always a pipe ; so why a photobook that is not about Belgium might not be one after all ! Things are not always what they are supposed to be !
So this book is not a photobook about Belgium, once said, then we can move on. Maybe this book is a book about Belgians, but beyond that, it’s mostly a tribute to the joy of living through what might be called a resilient form of happiness. From the cover, things are affirmed: a squat in the dark, shouting in front of the European borough, a status : « façade démocratique » (democratic facade). People shall overcome technocracy, capitalism and « for profit » enacted rules. And the book takes us on a ride, from bars to bars, the Jupiler appearing in watermarks. Jupiler, the famous beer from Liege, is ubiquitous and its mere mention is enough to evoke the warm atmosphere of bars that remain privileged places of meetings. We walk the streets, we come across couples of all ages, we even see a sign that says, to the face of those who still doubt, that love exists! No tourism in these images but shared moments, moments of encounter, feelings, with the highlight of the famous carnival of Binche, popular festival that occurs in the public space of the town and mobilizes the whole population.
The photographs were made before the 2008 crisis, they are its cure. We meet Pier Paolo Pasolini who reminds anyone who will listen that « Isn’t it for Happiness that Revolutions are made ? ». Of course they are ! This is this kind of revolution that David talks about in his book, the need to fight against the consumerism that isolates people more than it gathers. Not the Revolution, but these daily actions, these touches of humanity that we all carry in us and whose it is our duty to reveal to others. The photographs are superb, imbued with humanism and the printing perfectly gives justice to the quality of black and white photographs (tri-X still remains brilliant). And on a more personal way, it tells about the whole Belgium I like (yes, but beware, this is not a photobook about Belgium). It talks of Ostend which I do not know but dream of visiting, we drink Jupiler, it smell chips and sausages with the more than fifty varieties of sauces that any chip shop must offer ; we hear the screams of children following the carnival, and then we pass in front of Peter Van Petegem’s Danscafé Mustang, hero of the Ronde and Paris Roubaix. It throws myself back in time, full of hope young cyclist, on the roads of the Circuit Franco Belge … That was years ago, well long before the crisis!
We also cross the absurd, a naturalized fish, a triple medalist, who knows what for, a frightened cat under the photographers’ spots, an aboveground abandonned boat ! And all along, this carnival atmosphere that comes sprinkle the book.
And then there’s this girl, isolated in a car show, dreamy. She reminds me so much of this photograph by Robert Frank, a young woman in an elevator. I just want to join Jack Kerouac who asked about that girl : « That little ole lonely elevator girl looking up sighing in an elevator full of blurred demons, what’s her name & address? » This image condenses all the tenderness and melancholy of David Nollet, his empathy that crosses pages and takes us with a hope constantly renewed. It is not for nothing than his publishing house is called « Cape of Good Hope » (we shall never give up !).
The book ends with a view of a circuit car ride. The kind of same as we were longing for, every year with impatience, when it came to settle on the village square. For a week or two, it was carnival, rides, children’s games, excitation, flirting teenagers, and at the end, hope and expectations, already, that this time shall return the following year. The quality of this work is that David has created a universal story, we can all appropriate it, because we have all experienced those kind of moments. In that meaning, it is not a photobook about Belgium! QED!
Hardcover book, 22,5 x 31,5 cm, 104 pages, 47 black and white photos, design Kaat Flamey, quotes by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Herman Selleslags, Rudy Vandendaele and a Citizen of Brussels.
More info/order : http://www.cape.ag/?page_id=985
Exposure by Kazuma Obara
Posted: April 30, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks, Photography | Tags: 26 April 1986, Chernobyl, Exposure, japanese photography, Kazuma Obara, photobooks, Photography, World Press Photo 3 Comments30 years ago, on April 26th 1986, an explosion occured in a reactor of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. It has been, so far, the worst accident that has ever happened, in terms of costs and casualties. The unimaginable had become real. Lot of commemorations happened this week, and this post is a kind of small contribution to help us never forget the risks of nuclear hazard !
So here comes the time of a new crossover with my friend Gabriela, with a beautiful book about the aftermath of Chernobyl, of which only ten copies are in circulation.
The series « exposure » by Kazuma Obara has been awarded by the World Press Photo in the category People. This is a first. At all times, the WPP has always been a traditional institution and therefore, rather awarded subjects, certainly brilliant, but nonetheless of traditional form. For once, the award has welcomed an aesthetic images portfolio, certainly, but above all a story with a strong storytelling without any documentary documents.
Kazuma is passionate about history. His previous book « Silent Histories » restored a voice to the civilian victims of US bombing on Japanese territory at the end of the Second World War. This time, Kazuma is interested in the indirect victims of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. To do this, he created a story. It tells the life of a young woman who was born five months after the disaster, in Kiev. Fetus exposed to radiation, she suffers from a young age thyroid disorders, but she will only be operated at the age of 24… Interweaving « autobiographical » texts and photographs, Kazuma takes us in the footsteps of this disaster . Much has already been shown, whether ruined buildings or remaining population, in the manner of Guillaume Herbaut – The Zone – which now has regained a tourist attractivity, and the effects on health with deformed children born after the explosion, in the manner of Paul Fusco and Magdalena Caris – Chernobyl Legacy. They both are incomparable factual documents that show reality as it is. However, it lacked a representation that can show us the reality as experienced, something that is like an… interpretation.
To do this, Kazuma Obara has recovered old color films from the Soviet time, which he had found in Pripyat. Expired, irradiated, the results could only be surprising, especially since the products to develop no longer existed. Whatever, the result would be part of the process. After all, the title plays with the ambiguity of the term « exposure », both the photographic process of exposing the film with light, and the exposition to the invisible radiations after the explosion of the nuclear reactor. Before being used by the photographer, these films have already printed on them, the past history … Kazuma will improvise a black and white development with these films. The result is very imprecise, and, from a sensitometric point of view, quite bad, but who cares since these images tells the History. Black and white are sometimes faded, sometimes smoky, but still vague and it is in this inaccuracy that lies the beauty of the images.
The compiled phootgraphs tell us thiry years of the life of Maria. Inhabited places, abandoned places, in between locations and evanescent faces, the images are symbolic (including a view of the famous ferris wheel in Pripyat, a group of children…). I have to confess that aesthetics of certain images, for me, refer to another photography of a tragic youth, the one of Francesca Woodman, died at the age of 23. Destinies, both similar and opposite of these two young women. A form of photographic afterglow as a metaphor of the ability to register memory of the film.
The book is superb in his form and so touching by its content, it is an undeniable success which we would like it to be the subject of a public reissue, as was the case with Silent Histories, first published in 45 copies, then published by Editorial RM. Beyond the joy of being one of the lucky ten owners, this book deserves to be seen by many more.
Hardcover, 13 x 19,5 cm. 62 pages with 27 black and white photos. 10 copies signed and numbered. Sold out.
More info : http://www.kazumaobara.com/aboutme/index.html
exposure from Kazuma Obara on Vimeo.
All images copyright Kazuma Obara, can be removed on request.
Here is Gabriela’s review : https://gabrielacendoya.wordpress.com/
Exposure. Kazuma Obara.Autoeditado.
Hoy una nueva colaboración con Christer Ek ! Es un placer y un honor poder compartir esta pagina con el por segunda vez, esta vez con un nuevo libro de Kazuma Obara. Encontraréis su texto a continuación del mío.
Tapa dura, en tela.19,5 x 13 cm. Encuadernacion a mano.Blanco y negro.
27 fotografías. Texto en inglés, editado por Michael Thomason.
Impreso en Japón.
1° edición, numerada y firmada. Tirada 4/10.
Auto editado Kazuma Obara. Marzo 2016.
Hace poco presenté aquí el libro Silent Histories de Kazuma Obara. El fotógrafo japonés (1985 ), afincado entre Londres y Japón, ha ganado este año el premio del World Press Photo, en la modalidad de People ( gente ), con Exposure. Un premio nuevo del World Press Photo, con una credibilidad añadida en este caso, después de varias polémicas sobre la idoneidad de premios anteriores. Kazuma hizo un trabajo sobre las consecuencias del tsunami en Japón, que originó la catástrofe nuclear de Fukushima, (siendo el primer fotoperiodista que entró en la central después de lo ocurrido). Se dio entonces a conocer, con un libro publicado en 2012, Reset beyond Fukushima, antes de publicar Silent Histories, con un gran éxito. Exposure sigue la linea de ese trabajo acercandose a las propias víctimas y dandoles voz y protagonismo.
Kazuma encontró 20 carretes de color a pocos kilómetros de Chernobyl, de la época del accidente o poco después ( obsoletos en 1992 ), para fotografiar la zona. Exposure, el titulo, trata tanto de la exposición a la radiación que ha sufrido la población de la zona como del tiempo de exposición de las fotografías. Trabajadas en blanco y negro, llevan, indeleble, la marca del escape radioactivo. Son imágenes roídas, en proceso de desaparición, casi fantasmagóricas, de lugares y personas bien precisos. Habitaciones, salas de hospital, escuelas, la noria de Pripyat, espacios de juego, cercanías de la central… Espacios que tienen que ver con la vida de Mariya, nacida en Kiev a los 5 meses de la catástrofe, y cuya historia seguimos aquí, a través de su propio testimonio, en los textos que acompañan las fotografías. Mariya pasó años en habitaciones de hospital, con graves problemas de tiroides y de corazón, sufriendo para siempre en su cuerpo las terribles consecuencias de la radiación.
El libro cuenta una historia de una difícil superación, la recuperación de una infancia robada por terapias y sufrimientos, sentimientos de culpa e incomprensión y abandono. Kazuma retransmite la visión positiva de una posible superación humana . A pesar del horror que documentan sus fotografías, siluetas fantasmas y habitaciones destruidas. La fotografía, frágil imagen que ha sobrevivido a la tragedia, nos recuerda que la vida es mas fuerte que la muerte.
Exposure es un libro que deja huellas, como la historia que cuenta, fuerte y conmovedora. Sobrio y perfecto en su presentación, irradiando en su interior.
Solo puedo desear, sinceramente, como dice Christer en su reseña, que el libro tenga otra edición con tirada mas importante , a pesar de sentir satisfacción de tener una de las diez copias de esta primera edición. Kazuma Obara es un fotógrafo que cuida mucho sus publicaciones, haciendo muchas maquetas, y esta vale mucho la pena.
All images copyright Kazuma Obara, can be removed on request .
http://kazumaobara.com/index.html
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/2016/people/kazuma-obara
From Russia with love !*
Posted: April 20, 2016 Filed under: Photobooks | Tags: Borissova, Dimitry, Germanica, Nikishin, photobooks, Photography, Russia, Russian photography, Shagin, Telkov 2 CommentsThe photographic scene in the countries of Eastern Europe is extremely prolific. It has this generosity in creating that can be perceived very often when a country emerges from the shadows of an authoritarian regime. The energy stored for years seems to free creation. I have already had occasion to speak of many works from the east and here are five more books that caught my attention recently.
May 9 by Alexey Nikishin
May 9, in Russia, is dedicated to the commemoration of the end of World War II (just one day after us!) And it is the subject of this book. But instead of commemorating the war Alexey Nikishin celebrates peace. The book begins with a few excerpts of war correspondence, some words that reflect the hell, as if, to remind us, all who have died for each of us retains freedom. Published in 2015, this book was originally the result of an assignment for the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, but rather than photographing parades of veterans, Alexey chose to show the world that has become possible thanks the victory of the allied troops.
For three years, from 2012 to 2015, Alexey has traveled the world and brought us fragments of lives. The quality of the photographs here lies in their banality, they bear witness to these daily moments that make the richness of our lives, small details, holiday photos, a couple kissing in a long sequence of three photographs taken like an embrace, turning around the couple in an improvised ballet, three views, three seconds of an eternal scene. Each photo is meticulously captioned with the date, time and place as if to affirm a reality which one could doubt, almost images to post on social networks, whose imperfections reflect the reality.
Hardcover, 21 x 24 cm, 72 pages, 30 colour photographs, text in a leaflet in English, Russian, German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese. First published in Russian in 2015, second edition (first English edition) of 30 copies signed and numbered, published in 2016.
http://alexeynikishin.com/books/may9/
The journals, by Alexey Nikishin and Anton Shagin
The journals is an experience in two voices, or to better say, two scriptures: the first, Alexey’s one is photographic, the second, Anton’s one is in prose. The journal which will become the journals tells us three years of the relatioship between these two friends. It all started when Alexey glued some of his early black and white pictures, in a notebook that was handed to Anton, the latter has kept it with him, annotating with poems, according to his moods and desires. The journal has evolved, it stopped, was found again. There have been additions, withdrawals, gaps appeared… and it lasted three years. How then could one tell this experience, how a book could depict a project, together with its evolution, and not just showing the outcome ?
In this book, we came across a woman, swans and other patterns that come as chanting the same repeating words. The layout leaves space, the photos are small as to prevent us from giving them too much importance ; whites take their place. White, not as an empty space but rather a break. White in a book, it is like the silence on the radio, it’s scary, but well used, it is superb! In the end, the shape is very beautiful, the three books are glued, one passes from one to the next by the touch of the thickness of the cover. The chapters are marked, history reinvents itself … this book talks about the passing of time … and a little of ourselves.
Softcover, 17,8 x 24 cm; 132 pages; 90 black and white and colour photos, text in a leaflet in English, Russian, German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese. First published in Russian in 2015, first English edition of 30 copies signed and numbered, published in 2016.
http://alexeynikishin.com/books/thejournals/
iPhonographique, by Alexey Nikishin and Valeria Gai Germanica
Alexey loves combine photography and writing. This time, he worked with the Russian director Valeria Gai Germanica. In the title is understood that the subject touches the “new photography” as practiced with smartphones. After years of a silver traditional photography in black and white, Alexey discovered the joys of “instant” colourful photography. Frenzy of social networks, publications on Instagram, how many followers ? How many likes ? Two people interact, the two combined texts and photos, of Valeria and Alexey, to create a narrative about the weird ways of living, loving and suffering.
When you read a text, images appear in your mind; when we see pictures, a story is invented, too, in our heads. This book is the coincidence of the two. More than a description of one by the other, we are witnessing here an added value, a synergistic effect, an invented sense that remains nevertheless opposable to a alternate reading. It’s like a gigantic stage of life itself: every life is Shakespearean … and every day, we put our daily life on the scene of social networks!
Softcover, 15 x 20 cm, 42 Pages,, French Folding, Japanese Binding; 34 colour photos, text in a leaflet in English, Russian, German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese. First published in Russian in 2015, first English edition of 30 copies signed and numbered, published in 2016.
http://alexeynikishin.com/books/iphonographique/
Dimitry, by Julia Borissova
There are myths in the Russian history and Dimitry is one of them. Dimitry was the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. He died mysteriously with cut throat, that was enough for the myth to come to life. For me, these names instantly summon famous names, like Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible), or Pushkin (Boris Godunov, reinterpreted later by Mussorgsky), two authors who have interpreted this part of Russian history; but we also feels appear in the background the shade of Roland Barthes, particularly with his book “Mythologies” depicting the process of the creation of the myth. How an event can induce doubts or hopes? What about the part of history it creates, it recomposes? How the facts are twisted by the reading of a people or by its leaders? Dimitry’s story is a striking example, including his canonization by the Russian Orthodox church. This book by Julia Borissova is superb as are all those she already produced herself, handmade crafted.
A narration made of collages takes us through the Eternal Russia, images mingling to become timeless. We follow the ghost of Dimitry in the Russian countryside, he moves like a shadowy icon bearer (one thinks of course also to Andrei Rublev). It’s an oniric journey with no goal, just an imprecise souvenir floating like a dream. We try to appropriate the story to better tell it at our turn, enriching the myth ! The book can be read as an investigation, as is every work of a historian, looking for traces and details. Each society rewrote the history according to its modernity, one who is adored one day, becomes despised the day after, and so is built the myth of the hero. Julia Borissova continues her investigation without us deliver the key… One will also see a “prophetic” rooster through the pages which reminds us to the tale by Pushkin, more known from Rimsky Korsakov’s opera in XIXth century : The Golden Cockerel whose theme was the fall of the Tsarism (premonition of the October Revolution) which finds here its metaphoric sense with the murder of the Tsarevich, heir and symbol of the violent excesses committed during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. One of the finest books published this year, each page is an icon!
Artist book self published in 2016, 14,5 x 19 cm / Die Cut Hardcover, handmade binding / 88 pages. First Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies.
http://juliaborissova.ru/Julia_Borissova_PhotoSite/06.html
Artless confessions, by Fyodor Telkov
This last small book takes us back to our childhood. A school notebook of fine paper, protected by a flexible plastic cover. Plain blue, with lines to write his name in hand on the cover. For six years, Fyodor was interested in the most neglected classrooms, especially for a special feature: the graffiti left by students. Some classrooms have a lower maintenance than others and tables accumulate memories, like palimpsests Classrooms are austere, but when approaching tables, life arises. We discover, here, what could be considered as a aesthetic mix of primitive and contemporanian expression.
It is fascinating to discover the universality of these graffiti. Around the world, the subjects are the same. We do not understand the native language, but the patterns are recognizable, flowers, houses, people, signs and symbols as: peace, war. The trace of the language courses, writings in English or German; the adolescent emotions, sex, religion, chivalry, but also some unrecognizable drawings, just a wandering hand on the table, curves and bold and scarifications. Some drawings are naive, others more structured, and some become exquisite corpses reproducing a transgenerational imagination. We stop on the drawings and begin to dream, we would like to take a pencil to add our own trace, our mind wanders and moves away from the classroom, amongst Cypress Hill and Wu Tang bands, teenage dreams seem to be universal…
Self published softcover book, published in 2015. Digital printing, 17 x 20,5 cm, 32 colour photos. 30 copies signed and numbered.
http://store.fotodepartament.ru/shop/fyodor-telkov-artless-confessions
* You may notice that I am an old fan of early James Bond films starring Sean Connery.
who needs another photo blog 