Thomas Hoepker – ITALIA – PhotoBook Journal

Review by Gerhard Clausing •

Sometimes it is refreshing to see a top photographer’s first photographic project that has not previously been published. Recently I reviewed Roger Ballen’s reissue of his first documentary project, boyhood, and noted that it showed many instances of the promise that was later expanded and realized in many different ways. This is certainly also true of this photobook by Thomas Hoepker, a renowned Magnum photographer. These images were photographed between 1956 and 1959 in Italy; he started at age 19 and continued this Italian project through his early twenties. He repeatedly traveled to Italy to create many thousands of images, and thus mirrored young Ballen in regard to his early start. The publishers Thomas Gust and Ana Druga surveyed the negative archives and prepared the very astute selections found in this new photobook.

Photographic documentation of a cross-section of an entire country requires a number of special skills. First of all, there has to be an openness to new cultural information. The photographer also needs to have a curiosity to search out the unusual in everyday life, wherever it may be found. The photographer needs to have a sensitivity that allows him to recognize each special moment that represents everyday events in unusual ways. The artist needs a quickness of response and a willingness to do many kinds of experimental exposures to find the moments that are worthy of being seen in perpetuity. It is all the more amazing that a person this young who was still engaged in university studies was able to muster the maturity to come up with this range of interesting work.

The images in this photobook represent the non-touristy special corners of a country many of us find appealing. All age groups are represented, beliefs are integrated with moments of leftover history, and charming moments are shown, displaying many everyday events, such as the distribution of fruit. This is a very subtly layered presentation that also evokes some nostalgia on our part. We fondly remember the time when printed media were our primary source of information. In fact, this book features a special section that only shows images dealing with reading. We think back to a simpler time in which mass media were limited to newspapers and radio for most people. We admire those who were and still are able to receive comfort from touching religious statues in public squares.

We marvel at the quantity of fascinating moments that these images represent. For the image sections, the publishers have chosen a paper with a slight gloss, which brings out the best features of these memorable photographs. There’s never a dull moment – our interest is kept throughout the book. The layout is varied, and the format is fitting for a book showing images representing that time period. It is like holding a bit of history in your hands, an intelligent approach to an Italy that had just emerged from the difficult World War II period, an Italy whose people were in the process of reassembling their lives. The images have a special immediacy and snap through their contrast that makes them come alive, a further tribute to the work that Hoepker accomplished as a young man. The texts by Barcia and Gust add both flavor and historical and artistic frameworks to this photobook.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had more books that would so competently submerge us in the past of various countries, that would also similarly free us from touristic clichés, and that would be presented by equally skilled observers, editors, and publishers?

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Gerhard Clausing, Editor of the PhotoBook Journal, is an author, photographer, and synthographer from Southern California.

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Thomas Hoepker – ITALIA

Photographer: Thomas Hoepker (born in Munich, Germany; resides in New York City, USA)

Essays and Texts: Raúl Morales Barcia, Thomas Gust

Languages: German and English

Fabric-covered hardback with tipped in image and title; 200 pages, paginated; 17 x 24 cm (6.75 x 9.5 inches); printed and bound in Germany by Wanderer Druckerei; ISBN 978-3-9819805-7-8

Photobook Designers: Thomas Gust, Ana Druga

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Articles and photographs published in the PhotoBook Journal may not be reproduced without the permission of the PhotoBook Journal staff and the photographer(s) and publishers. All images, texts, and designs are under copyright by the authors and/or publishers.