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Favourite Photobooks 2023

This past year we were once again able to discover numerous photo books from all over the world that have inspired us. A good sign of the growing diversity and increasing importance of the photo book as a medium. However, three books particularly impressed us conceptually: Tomasz Tomaszewski's retrospective "World Trip" in the form of an œuvre catalog and Werner Amann's "Kein Morgen", a stimulating look at the glorious rave culture of the nineties. Last but not least: Claudio Pogo, who applies his textual scalpel so furiously to Germany's controversial tabloid BILD that we have learned to see it anew.

Tomasz Tomaszewski,
The World Is Where You Stop

Everything next to each other and at the same time - Tomasz Tomaszewski's visual worlds explode all categories with a force that is mercilessly captivating. The Polish grand master gives us a deep insight into his impressive work. Critical, euphoric and so vivid that it almost hurts: "the world is where you stop" won't let you go!

Published by  BLOW UP PRESS, 2023
Softcover / 28 x 37 cm / 320 pages
Design: Aneta Kowalczyk
ISBN 978-83-965969-2-5
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Werner Amann,
Kein Morgen

Welcome to the nineties! Werner Amann takes us into shimmering, ecstatic worlds without smartphones and social media. Crystal-clear snapshots of raves, parties and after-hours clubs in Berlin, Paris, Zurich and New York, in the Tresor, Limelight or at the Love Parade. Party wildly and feel everything: In "Kein Morgen", Amann plays the sound of a decade between two book covers. Leif Randt adds short texts that are as explicit as poetic.

Published by Spector Books, Dec 2022
Hardcover, padded / 17,5 × 25,5 cm / 198 pages
Design: Lamm & Kirch
ISBN: 978-3-95905-683-0
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Claudio Pogo,
BILD

A tabloid without text - Claudio Pogo dissects the visual language of Germanys best selling daily "Bild": On over 500 front pages, starting in the early fifties, he has deleted all of the newspaper's texts. An incredibly exciting, visual focus on contemporary news history!

Published by Outer Space Press, 2023
Hardcover / 30 × 41 cm / 444 pages
ISBN 978-3-942547-74-1
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Favourite Photobooks 2022

"The book extends its influence" is how French photo portal The Eye of Photography summed up this year's Paris Photo! Countless new photo books, new fairs and more and more publishers: The photo book as a medium is becoming an increasingly serious player in the world of photography. All the more important we see the task of developing and communicating photobook culture in all its facets.

Our three photo books of the year are distinguished by their ability to open up new perspectives and spaces for thought. The reception history of Diane Arbus through her Documents, the "making of" Susan Meisela's legendary Carnival Strippers and Dayanita Singh's innovative look at her own Book Building and the expanded possibilities of dealing with the medium. Three publications that pave the way for a future photobook culture!

Diane Arbus, Documents

This extensive volume, wonderfully designed and produced, brings together all the quotes, correspondences, writings, commentaries, criticisms and an extensive bibliography on, by and about Diane Arbus. We cannot agree more to the quote on the back of the book: "... because what is written will become what is known ...".

Published by David Zwirner Books & Fraenkel Gallery, 2022
Hardcover with exposed spine
21.6 × 27.9 cm  /  496 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-64423-065-7
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Susan Meiselas,
Carnival Strippers revisited / Making Of

On the occasion of her exhibition at C/O Berlin Susan Meiselas revisited her 1976 classic Carnival Strippers. Together with a re-edition of her book comes a great "Making Of" containing largely unpublished additional color images, contact sheets, facsimiles of her notebooks and various ephemera. We love it! 

Published by Steidl & C/O Berlin, 2022
Two clothbound hardcovers in slipcase
27.5 × 23.5 cm / 304 Pages
ISBN: 978-3-96999-002-5 
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Dayanita Singh,
Book Building

This is Dayanita Singh manifesto for the photobook. Book Building documents the 13 books she did in close cooperation with Gerhard Steidl. Added to her various performative interventions from book carts & suitcases to her museum instalation are detailed instructions on how to display her books as exhibitions—making the viewer the curator of her work. A truly self-proclaimed "offset artist"!

 

Published by Steidl, 2022
Hardcover / 20.3 × 28.6 cm / 136 Pages
ISBN 978-3-95829-908-5 
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Favourite Photobooks 2021

Studio Photo Nationale

by Samuel Fosso

 

As we look back on an exciting 2021 and a stack of great photo books... we want to share with you our favorite photo book of the year:
STUDIO PHOTO NATIONALE by Samuel Fosso

"An amazing production,
fantastic photographs and a
great story behind it
... we love it! "


76 folded pages (Japanese),
spiral-bound book in a slipcase with screen printing.
Risographed and bound by hand. 24 x 33 cm
Concept, design and printing by Sébastien Girard

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Foto: Samuel Fosso, Cover und Schuber aus Studio Photo Nationale, Toulouse 2021