This year our "Directors' Choice – Favourite Photobook of the Year" is not just one book but three!
As we looked through the stacks of photobooks from last year, our choice was not classic photobooks, but three "Books on Books". Each of them, in its own way, gives deep insights into the thinking in books, the production process and the reception of three extraordinary female artists.
Stay tuned, all our best wishes and take good care.
Happy New Year from Cologne!
Markus & Frederic
In quick rotation THE BOX will showcase treasures from the collection, remarkable and new discoveries or small thematic exhibitions with and about photobooks. For the opening of their showroom, Markus Schaden and Frederic Lezmi are presenting their "Directors' Choice - Our Favourite Photobook 2022":
published by Sébastien Girard
In 2014, when civil war was raging in the Central African Republic, Samuel Fosso’s studio in the capital Bangui was looted. The photojournalists Jerome Delay, Marcus Bleasdale and Peter Bouckaert rescued the negatives from destruction and sent them to Fosso who had already emigrated to Paris.
For seven years, these three steel boxes containing more than 50,000 negatives remained locked. In the spring of 2021, the French photographer and book designer Sébastien Girard gained access to this lost photographic material and edited it.
This photobook, produced by Girard on his Riso Press, is dedicated to Fosso’s early studio photographs from the 1980s and tells the fascinating story of Studio Photo Nationale several decades before Fosso was discovered as a major African artist.
Door Open: | Thursday
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On View: | 24/7 |
Photo: Samuel Fosso, from Studio Photo Nationale, Toulouse 2021
If anyone dared to claim in her presence that she lived for photography, they were quickly informed otherwise. No, Renate Gruber declared with a twinkle in her eye, but always with polite insistence: the fact was rather that she lived photography!
Photo: House Gruber, Cologne 2020 / The PhotoBookMuseum
We are very proud to announce that as of 2024, we will be taking over the prestigious Dummy Award from our good friend Dieter Neubert from the Fotobook Festival Kassel. We are sure that this will increase the importance of the Dummy Award for young photographers and put the award on an even broader footing. Together with our printing and publishing partner Ufuk Sahin from Mas Matbaa in Istanbul, this is destined to maintain the high quality and reputation of the Kassel Dummy Award in the future.
The 2023 Dummy Award will still be organised in cooperation with the Fotobook Festival Kasssel.
We therefore invite all photographers worldwide to take part. There are no restrictions concerning age, format or topic. From all entries, 50 books will be selected for a shortlist to be exhibited at various international photography and photobook festivals and events. In a jury including votes from all exhibition venues 5 winning books will be selected from the shortlist.
One of these books will be awarded the PBM/MAS Prize and will be produced in one of the finest printing houses in Istanbul and published by MAS Matbaa in cooperation with The PhotoBookMuseum.
The PhotoBookMuseum
A big thank you to the Nachtigall Team and all the many vistors that joined us on that wonderful TOKYO EXPRESS experience.
Photo: Koji Onaka from memories of younger days in Shinjuku, Tokyo 2018
The Reception of Photobooks.
What would photobooks be without their critical audience? Not much!
The articles in the new issue 35/21 of PhotoResearcher published by the European Society for the History of Photography show exactly that.
In seven case studies, authors examine the relationship between photobooks and their recipients. The selected books are remarkable examples of the history of photography. They have shocked, crossed social boundaries and opened the eyes of entire generations to social and political matters. The issue gives unexpected, fascinating insights into the reception history of well-known photobooks and allows its readers to follow up on how the books and social discourses influence one another.
Click here for PhotoResearcher
Photo: Michael Schmidt, Spread from Waffenruhe, Berlin 1987
“The Photobook in Art and Society”
Participative Potentials of a Medium
Photography has been undergoing a paradigm shift since the turn of the millennium. The fine art print has been increasingly replaced, making way for the photobook which is experiencing a certain boom. However, it remains to be seen if the medium finds its way out of the ivory tower of the elitist photography scene. Is the photobook capable of establishing a visible literature that is accessible and understandable for everyone?
The PhotoBookMuseum and the Montag Foundation for Art and Society have tackled this question in a collaborative mobile project. Under the motto "World in Transition", the participatory qualities of photo books have been examined on the basis of new communication concepts. In the recent publication, professionals from the fields of science, art practice and culture institutions impressively unveil the social relevance of the medium. The Reader demonstrates how photobooks nowadays, act as a structuring force against the immanent flood of images.
“The Photobook in Art and Society”
Participative Potentials of a Medium
Montag Stiftung Kunst und Gesellschaft (Ed.)
in cooperation with The PhotoBookMuseum
Swiss brochure binding
16,7 x 24 cm
468 pages, 220 col. und b/w images.
English
Jovis Verlag, 2020
ISBN 978-3-86859-594-9; € 42,80
„The photobook is one of the most important mediums in our culture.“
Manfred Heiting, Photobook Collector, Los Angeles
The PhotoBookMuseum was founded in Cologne in 2014 as a non-profit organisation that aims to foster the photobook as a significant photographic medium. It serves as a public platform for collections, exhibitions and events and is committed to research and education on contemporary photobook culture. As a museum of the twenty-first century it offers an inclusive environment for active involvement with the arts to a diverse audience.
Acting as a mobile museum, it uses innovative exhibition strategies and hosts international curatorial co-operations far away from the mainstream of traditional museums. So far, the PhotoBookMuseum is the only museum in the world that is exclusively dedicated to the medium of photobooks, focusing on its democratic potential.
info@thephotobookmuseum.com
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