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Reviewed by Blake Andrews
Photographs by Bertien Van Manen
Mack, London, England, 2016. 60 pp., 32 color illustrations, 10¼x11½".
Photographs by Bertien Van Manen
Mack, London, England, 2016. 60 pp., 32 color illustrations, 10¼x11½".
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By Yoichi Nagata
SkyEarth
Purchase Signed Book
"Star of the Stars, Yoichi Nagata’s first book, presents his portraits of fantastically dressed club-goers at events in Tokyo. It was privately published in 2014 in a limited edition of 300 autographed copies.
The photos document the Tokyo underground night scene from 2005 to 2013. Over those years Nagata visited late-night club events at Shinjuku, Shibuya, and elsewhere in Tokyo, setting up an ad hoc portrait studio in a small corner of the venue. The people he captured there are many and varied, hailing from not only within Tokyo but as far away as Kyushu and Niigata. One might try to classify them into this or that style—gothic Lolita, sweet Lolita, maid fashion, cyberpunk, bondage, Takuya Angel—but many are so fanciful as to defy genre and description."—from the publisher
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Reviewed by Karen Jenkins
Photographs by Cristina De Middel. Text by Amos Tutuola.
RM Editorial / Archive of Modern Conflict, 2015. 178 pp., 66 illustrations, 5¼x11¼".
A five-year-old boy flees his Nigerian town, slipping into the Bush to avoid capture by invading soldiers. He’s crossed a proverbial line, entering a Bush of Ghosts, where no humans are welcome. Not yet understanding bad and good, an innocent bursts unwittingly into a forbidden realm. Here he wanders, lost and searching for home, for thirty years, enduing all manner of peril, punishment and physical manipulation by a fantastical line-up of spirits. He tells his tale in the 1954 Nigerian novel My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, written by Amos Tutuola, describing each episode in an almost affectless tone. Fear, disgust, hunger and the occasional relief and reward are acknowledged, but within a matter-of-fact description of events, amplifying their impact. The words of the novel open Cristina De Middel’s collection This is What Hatred Did, trailing down its split-format interior in an oversized font. After a few pages, words scale back and branch off; we follow Tutuola’s story in a small, detached section at the top of the volume and are introduced to De Middel’s photographs and sketches spanning the larger spread below. While her 2012 work The Afronauts was the first leg of De Middel’s conceptual travel to the continent, Tutuola’s magical tale and an invitation to show her work at the Lagos Photo Festival in Nigeria were the catalyst for her actual visit to Africa.
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| For Birds' Sake. By Cemre Yesil and Maria Sturm. La Fábrica, 2015. |
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Reviewed by Adam Bell
By Kazuma Obara
EDITORIAL RM, Mexico City, Mexico, 2016. In English and Japanese. 217 pp., 162 color illustrations, 7x10".
Win or lose, too often civilian survivors and casualties of war are either used to spur military action or pushed aside as reminders of a difficult time that we’d rather forget. In Japan, the civilian injuries and deaths during World War II conjured memories of a war lost, atrocities committed in the pursuit of victory, and the terrible devastation wrought on Japan by the United States. After the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan forged ahead, rebuilt, and created a thriving economy. Pairing historical documents, personal materials, and photographs, Kazuma Obara’s Silent Histories looks at the lives of several children who were hurt during the war, suffered great loss, and grew up hiding their injuries from a society that just wanted to forget and move on. Now adults, their life-long struggles are reminders of a past that is painfully present for many and a rebuke to a society that refused, or did not know how, to help them.
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By Coley Brown
Silent Sound
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"A Recurring Dream by Coley Brown is a book of photography which goes on a non-linear journey of strange landscapes and presents a personal survey of subtle abstractions found in the natural world."—from the publisher
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Reviewed by Blake Andrews
Photography and text by Colin Delfosse.
Editions 77, Paris, France, 2015. In English and French. 80 pp., 43 color illustrations, 8¼x11".
First things first. Toute Arme Forgée Contre Moi Sera Sans Effete is one of the prettiest photobooks I've seen in a while. The bright blue cloth cover, canary yellow endpapers, and crimson edges set a primary tone for the colorful pictures. The interior is divided smartly by paper type. After a series of portraits on bright coated stock, the book switches to beige uncoated pages for a photojournalistic recap in both French and English. The whole package is nicely finished with a debossed yellow cover icon of the subject at hand: Congolese wrestlers. The publisher Editions 77 doesn't have much of a track record. This seems to be their only book to date, and they're off to a nice start.
photo-eye is excited to announce our sixth photo-eye EDITIONS publication, Vanishing Spirits: The Macallan® Collection by Ernie Button, as well as a corresponding exhibition in our Gallery Tower. photo-eye EDITIONS are exquisite handcrafted limited edition portfolios of contemporary photography contained in an engraved, anodized aluminum box and produced at photo-eye Studios in Santa Fe, NM. The Vanishing Spirits: The Macallan® Collection portfolio is published in an edition of 30 and contains 10 Archival Pigment Prints on Hahnemüle Paper, a title page, a plate list, an essay by Hamidah Glasgow, Executive Director of The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins Colorado, an artist statement and colophon signed and numbered by the artist.
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| Corrections. By Zora J Murff. Aint-Bad Editions, 2015. |
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Noroc. By Cedric Van Turtelboom.
Self-Published, 2015.
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A review by Colin Pantall
Noroc
Photographs by Cedric Van Turtelboom. Texts by Jean-Marc Bodson & Cedric Van Turtelboom.
Self-Published, Bruges, Belgium, 2015. In English. 86 pp., full color illustrations, 6¾x8¾".
Noroc by Cedric Von Turtelboom is a book about Romania. "Noroc" means both "Good Luck" and "Good Health," it tells us on the first page.
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Photographs by Mark Cohen. Introduction by Jane Livingston.
University of Texas Press
Purchase Signed Book
"It is intentionally scattered so as not to try to fix too tight a theory about the work. The first picture of the coal truck and the last picture of the alarmed old guy flashed is intentional and then scattered through are some corresponding pictures that make either formal sense or rebus like sense in a psychological way. It is an autobiographical book. I had no plan when I started taking pictures and still see no complete sense of reason about the wide range of pictures and its possible link to social issues."—Mark Cohen from the interview on photo-eye Blog
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Dirt Meridian
Reviewed by George Slade
Photographs by Andrew Moore. Text by Ina Verzemnieks and Toby Jurovics. Preface by Kent Haruf.
Damiani, Italy, 2015. In English. 140 pp., 73 color illustrations, 13½x11".
How many photographic books featuring aerial photography have been published? Lots, right? But how many of those books credit a pilot on the title page? Andrew Moore’s Dirt Meridian is the only one I can think of (though I excuse Marilyn Bridges and William Garnett because they flew their own planes).
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| FIRE AND ICE: Alan Friedman & Douglas Levere at photo-eye Gallery |
"From print to print in the exhibition Fire and Ice, the visitor is confronted by images of tremendous burning energy and of quiet, frigid, crystalline forms."
– Paul Weideman, Pasatiempo
The Santa Fe New Mexican
FIRE AND ICE is currently in its second full week on view at photo-eye Gallery, and has received some excellent press coverage. Quoted above is an excerpt from Paul Weideman's write-up of FIRE AND ICE from the Santa Fe New Mexican's Pasatiempo Arts and Culture magazine. Touching on some aspects as photo-eye's recent interviews with Friedman and Levere, Weideman's article discusses the technical aspects and background of the collaboration.
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Photographs by Paul Kooiker
Art Paper Editions
Purchase Signed Book
Selected as one of the Best Books of 2015 by:
Hans Gremmen
Jeffrey Ladd
Little Brown Mushroom
Sarah Bradley
Melanie McWhorter
Miwa Susuda
"I end up saying each word in my head as I move through Nude Animal Cigar, which, along with the internal numbering system, keeps the images in triads. Exactly what it says on the cover but with the feeling of a triple entendre."—Sarah Bradley
PRE-ORDER DEADLINES
Hidden Track — Limited Edition
Photographs by No. 223
No. 223 photographs his circle of friends and himself, portraying his view of youth culture and lifestyles in contemporary China. His photographs are marked by fashionable indolence, saturated colours, penetrating flash, and frontal shots that unveil his models’ empowering presence and vulnerability at the same time.
Limited edition of 500 copies, design by Ramon Pez. Includes a signed C-print.
photo-eye is taking pre-orders for Limited Edition copies of Hidden Track. If our supplier runs out, orders will be fulfilled in the order in which they are received. The cutoff time for ordering is Tuesday, February 9th at 12:00 PM Mountain Time.
Pre-order Limited Edition book or read more
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Northwoods Journals
Reviewed by Karen Jenkins
Photographs by Kurt Simonson. Essay by George Slade. Poem by Franz Wright.
Flash Powder Projects, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 2015. In English. 136 pp., 65 color illustrations, 10x8".
As a young boy, Kurt Simonson discovered a sealed envelope in his grandmother’s dresser drawer labeled “not to be opened until my death.” Its secret contents and deferred revelations haunted him in the decades to follow. After nearly twenty years away from home, he returned to Minnesota to revisit the familiar and familial. Photographs made there during the last twelve-odd years comprise his debut publication, Northwoods Journals. An image of the now-opened envelope lying face down on a crocheted afghan starts off the sequence; its sliced seam announces his grandmother’s passing, while its otherwise unyielding muteness sets the tone for the works to follow. No literal explanation of the envelope’s contents, good or bad, commemorative or confessional, is offered here. Nor are we presented with a straightforward narrative elucidation of the family legacy that seems to hinge upon it. Yet, Simonson does give us something to open — a few short paragraphs to set the stage. A tipped in sheet of paper, folded over in thirds reproduces a handwritten note by the photographer. In it, Simonson tells the story of the envelope’s discovery and its portentous influence over him. He also points to some broad themes and symbols in his work — from the bibles and blankets requisite of both grandmothers’ homes to the entrancing depths of the surrounding Minnesota woods.
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| 2012 September 3 – Labor Day Sun, © Alan Friedman, 2012 |
photo-eye Gallery is thrilled to showcase recent work by renowned astrophotographer Alan Friedman, on view in the FIRE AND ICE exhibition installed at photo-eye Gallery through April 9th, 2016. FIRE AND ICE juxtaposes Friedman's incredible hi-resolution images of 'our neighborhood star' with Douglas Levere's detailed renderings of snowflakes. Friedman's colorful images have been selected for NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, been the subject of a TEDx talk, and have appeared on NPR and NBC's Today Show. Previously interviewed for the Photographer's Showcase, Gallery Associate Lucas Shaffer recently spoke with Friedman again, detailing more about his artistic history as well as his personal practice.
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| A People's History of Pittsburgh. Edited by Melissa Catanese and Ed Panar. Spaces Corners, 2015. |
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Reviewed by Adam Bell
Photographs by Sanne Peper
Lecturis, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2015. In English. 168 pp., color and black-and-white illustrations, 8x10¾x½".
The myths and symbolic allure of the American South are both seductive and fertile, but can also be a trap. The wellspring for novelists like William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor as well as other artists, the Southern landscape is steeped in a dark and troubled history that often clouds its more nuanced reality, leading to easy caricature. Sanne Peper's Due to Lack of Interest Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled is hard to describe as a traditional photobook. Instead, it seems more apt to view the work as the marginalia of a bewildered and obsessed amateur folklorist pursuing the visions and dreams of a South outlined in fiction, film, and song. Plagued by doubts and possessed by the exotic allure of the region, Peper foregrounds her naïveté and foreignness in the confessional texts throughout the book while also expressing her amazement at a culture so radically different from her own. Combining landscape imagery with textual fragments, Peper’s book explores both the layered mythology of the American South but also her own obsession. However, instead of answers, we're lead through the swamp and forced to gaze into the impenetrable thicket of kudzu and Spanish moss. The answers aren't there; instead we're driven back to the source of Peper's inspiration — the vital cultural outpouring of a complex, strange and beautiful place.
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