PhotoBook exhibition – curating in progress

I was recently invited to submit a curatorial proposal for a photobook exhibition based on the thematic subject of “work”, which is an interesting word as well as subject for photographers. Idea is tap into the history of photography in recent years, reinterpreted through a great deal of attention to differences and changes of the languages of photography and contemporary work.

As stated by the exhibition director;  

What remains of “20th-century” work? Its “vision”, which was often also mythological, full of physical exertion and large masses, has changed and in many cases endures alongside more sophisticated, often solitary, technological kinds of work that are frequently difficult to transform into visions. How do these old visions marry the new ones? What unites them? Perhaps some of the answers to these questions contain a global vision of the world and a vision of photography that we consider the most effective tool for the analysis of contemporary society and its languages.

A study of work is therefore also an investigation into identity.

My goal is to bring together 25 – 30 photobooks by contemporary photographers who explore and investigate this multifaceted and complex theme. To add a further layer to the exhibition, I am asking the photographers to select and re-photograph a two page spread from their book in which we will exhibit the prints of the interiors of photobook on the walls surrounding the photobooks.

As examples of those which are on my short of photobooks are Melissa Shook’s My Suffolk Downs, Ron Jude’s Lick Creek Line, Clayton Cotterell’s Unarmed, Thijs Helenfeld’s Men at Work, Christian Paterson’s  Redheaded Peckerwood, Rania Matar’s A Girl in her Room, Bertil Nilsson’s Undisclosed, Rob Hornstra’s Sochi Singers, Gina LeVay’s Sandhogs, Andy Freeberg’s Guardians, Beth Dow’s In the Garden, Lauren Burke’s Birth of a Statesman, Dan Nelken’s Till the Cows come Home, Chris Shaw’s Life as a Night Porter, Pierre Bessard’s Wuhan Boiler Company Workers, Susan Anderson’s High Glitz, and Louie Palu’s Cage Call.

Please leave a comment about any photobooks that you think deserve consideration and if possible include a link to the book and its interior images.

Best regards, Doug