10 x 10 American Photobooks exhibition catalog

Exhibition and catalog was also in association with the International Center of Photography Library, Photobook Facebook Group & Tokyo Institute of Photography

This is an exhibition catalog for a photobook exhibition that was organized by Matthew Carson, Russet Lederman & Olga Yatskevich and who edited this catalog as a part of 10 x 10 Photobook Projects.

The catalog is a compilation of essays by 17 photobook writers, features the photobooks that were included in the reading rooms at three exhibition locations as provided by 10 contemporary photobook luminaries, the on-line photobook selection by 10 American contemporary photobook luminaries (including mine, thus revealing that I might have a slight bias towards this catalog), and an insert with the American photobook selection by 10 Japanese contemporary photobook luminaries.

There are 100 photobooks included in the reading room, in which the physical book could be picked-up and read. There are 100 photobooks that were included in the virtual on-line by the American photobook bloggers as well as another 100 photobooks by the on-line Japanese photobook bloggers.

This is the second 10 x 10 Photobook projects exhibition and reading room while the previous 2012 project did not have an exhibition catalog published.

In choosing the photobooks for inclusion in the 2013 American Photobooks, we as curators were provided the following guidance; books should be made by (US) Americans, published between 1987 and the present and perhaps photobooks that have been “under the radar”.

The stiff-cover catalog has an added element with the use of three elastic bands in the symbolic colors of the American flag, red, white and blue to bind the insert booklet to the catalog. The main catalog is saddle stitched as is the smaller interior insert containing the American photobook selection by 10 Japanese contemporary photobook writers. A belly band wraps the outer book cover. The text for the entire catalog is provided in both English and Japanese. The catalog was designed by Victor Sira and Shiori Kawasaki, with the printing and binding occurring in Iceland with the Newsprint insert printed and bound in New York and designed by Tuomas Korpijaakko and Pierre Le Hors.

All in all, the 10 x 10 American Photobooks exhibition and subsequent catalog was a huge effort that resulted in an excellent series of exhibitions and I am honored to be amongst those participating.

This catalog was included in my selection of Interesting photobooks for 2013, which you can view my entire selection here. My selection of 10 x10 American Photobooks can be found here.

Douglas Stockdale for The PhotoBook