Photo Book pop-up exhibit and curator talk at Palos Verdes Art Center

Photo Book Pop-up exhibition, Palos Verdes Art Center, February 2018 copyright photos by Karen Schuenemann

As was previously announced, I gave a curatorial talk about Photo Books as Art for the Photographic and Digital Art (PADA) group of the Palos Verdes Art Center (PVAC) at their facility last week.

I had intended to highlight just the photobooks that Gerhard and I had selected as the Most Interesting Photo Books for 2017, but as I set these aside, on the spur of the moment I included some additional photobooks from my collection that provided a more diverse look at the creative side of the photo book object. Thus I included the following photographer’s photobooks; Mariela Sancari’s self-published Moises (one of the best photobooks of 2016), Claire Felicie’s self-published Only the Sky Remains Untouched (second place, Photo Independent’s International Photo Book Competition), Ellen Korth’s self-published CHARKOW (winner, Photo Independent’s International Photo Book Competition), Roger Ballen’s Ballenesque and The Theatre of Apparitions, Max Pam’s Ramadan in Yemen, Kate Nolan’s Neither, Andrej Lamut’s Nokturno, Renee Jacobs’s Slow Burn (limited edition version) Tymon Markowski’s self-published Flow, Harvey Benge’s Home Town Dream, Matej Sitar’s self-published America, My Way and Nancy Rexroth’s IOWA. I also shared by Blurb book dummy In Passing and introduced my photographic project Middle Ground to illustrate the development of a book dummy, which I had all three versions of Middle Ground.

The group was pretty enthusiastic about the international scope and creative designs that I included in this pop-up mini exhibition. The discussions were pretty wide ranging from the book designs, book designers, self-publishing, book printing and just about everything in between. At the conclusion of my presentation, everyone had a chance to inspect and further discuss the featured books.

Later this month I will be providing a mini-seminar, Photo Book Pre-visualization, as well as leading a book discussion panel for Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) on Saturday, March 17th, details here. I will also have available some of my photobooks, including Bluewater Shore, Ciociaria and Guide to Self-publishing an Indie Artist Book.

Cheers!