Best Books 2014: Ruth van Beek

Best Books 2014 Best Books 2014 Ruth van Beek Best Books picks from photographer Ruth van Beek.

Tiergarten By Johannes Schwartz Roma Publications Food for animals in the zoo is maybe the weirdest and least photogenic subject for a photobook, but when put together in this colorful monumental work, perfectly size, printed with so much love and handwork, it becomes a masterpiece and I can’t stop looking.	Home is Where the Dog Is By Erik Van der Weijde 4478 Zine The house and walled garden where Erik lives with his wife, son and pets shape the boundaries of this book. Only once to be crossed with a very upsetting image just outside the walls. One of his best books ever!	Zeitungsfotos / newspaper photographs By Thomas Ruff Bookhorse I have a weakness for books that contain archives. Particularly when you don’t really know why the images are put together. This is such a book. Add to that the beautiful and clear design, the paper, format and weight of the book… just perfect!
People of the Twenty First Century By Hans Eijkelboom Phaidon 6000 images of ordinary people on the streets, perfectly organized by the master observer!	In this Dark Wood By Elisabeth Tonnard J&L Books Again a book with people on the street, but this time they play a role in a story different from reality. These men and women are photographed by night, staring in the distance, combined on every spread with a translation of the first sentence from Dante’s Inferno. It becomes haunting and beautiful at the same time. This book was published some years ago, but there is a reprint now and I think every book-lover should have it.	Raster By Yukihito Kono Self-Published In this simple, unique and handmade book, a girl and a simple movement play the lead. Seeing it at Offprint between such an overload of books, it stopped time for a moment and I didn’t forget.
Cathédrales By Laurence Aëgerter RVB A book that stretches time and not only shows the movement of the sunlight on one image, but in the same time creates a movement as you browse trough it’s pages. The book becomes the image.	Windows Mirrors Tabletops By Lucas Blalock Morel So many great photographic works made in such a short time, all put together in one book. Besides thinking and writing a lot about new ways of stretching photography, Lucas Blalock must have so much fun in his studio! And this shows in his photos on every page of the book.	The Bungalow By Anouk Kruithof Onomatopee A book that cannot be captured in a glance, it irritates with its overload of information spread over the pages in constantly changing layouts. But this also triggers me to look closer and become a witness to Anouk Kruithof’s struggle, an archive of images and a bungalow.
Teddy Bear By Erik van der Weijde 4478 Zine Besides photobooks, I am a secret collector of stuffed animals. What can I say, I just love Teddy Bears.

Ruth van Beek
Born in Zaandam, the Netherlands, 14 October 1977. Lives and works in Koog aan de Zaan, The Netherlands. Ruth van Beek graduated in 2002 at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam following a Master in Photography. Her work was presented in several solo and group exhibitions in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Austin, New York, San Francisco and Beijing. Works have been published online and in magazines worldwide such as such as Time Magazine, Capricious, Foam Magazine, Fantom Magazine, Rodeo, It's Nice That, and recently in the British Journal of Photography where she has been selected as one of BJP's 20 photographers to watch in 2013. She published two books at RVB BOOKS in Paris, The Hibernators (2011) and The Arrangement (2013). The Arrangement was shortlisted for the Aperture best photobook 2014.