The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Since its beginnings 200 years ago, photography has occupied an uneasy territory between what is seen and what is not. Photographs record moments that have already vanished; they transform the visible world into a trace of itself. In A Lineage of Spectral Femininity, Hali Autumn embraces this condition not as... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Disarmingly direct and unassuming, Tom Lyon and Pauline Vanden Neste’s On est venus ici pour la vue presents people and places in the Aurore neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium. Built in the 1960s, the neighborhood comprises seven high-rise apartment blocks set among green spaces along a canal. Like other engineered housing... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson · Jan Staller’s recent book Manhattan Project is a beautifully crafted collection of photographs taken at New York City construction sites between 2010 and 2024. In Staller’s photographs, steel beams and joints, cables, rebar, pipes, manifolds, connectors, and the like are stripped of their backgrounds and taken out of context. This... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Qeshm Island in the strategic Persian Gulf has been in the news lately. It is a large island of about 600 square miles, just off the coast of Iran in the Straight of Hormuz. In 2018 in more peaceful times Kuwaiti photographer Huda Abdulmughni visited Qeshm. She stayed in a... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • This stunning book—a joy to hold and behold—captured and held my attention for hours. Carefully designed to reflect the art of bookmaking itself, this custom volume employs traditional presswork on the cover, bespoke papers throughout, stunning images, and thoughtfully chosen typography, all curated to honor the historical and visual essence... Continue Reading →
Review by Olga Bubich · Atlantic is a new photobook by the Ukraine-born photographer, curator, and publisher Dimitri Bogachuk, whose delicate work and attentive eye for seascapes have established him as a distinctive voice in contemporary art photography. Formally, the collection can be seen as the extension of the artist’s previous volume entitled Le Plat... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · A contemporary trend in photobooks is to be clever and mix in various and sundry subjects in an attempt to add meaning and depth. Sometimes this works, but often it doesn’t and just comes across as empty attention seeking. Artists who share meaningful issues stand out. Usually it is because... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Akiko Kimura’s i is simple, so simple that you think there is not much there. But then you look again and realize that it shows how less can be more and how minimalism can expand rather than limit the scope of your viewing experience. How does that work? Viewed as... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Helen Levitt’s photographs have often been described as street photography, but that term is too narrow for what she accomplished. The street, for Levitt, was not merely a location. It was a stage, a playground, a studio, a social club, a theater of small dramas, and sometimes a wall-sized sketchbook.... Continue Reading →
Review by Olga Bubich · Sometimes what draws a collector towards a photobook is a name – that of a photographer whose eye and voice one trusts, a designer whose choices one allows to curate personal collections, or a small independent publisher whose selectiveness, often conditioned by financial limitations, makes each of their projects immediately... Continue Reading →
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