The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Steve Harp · Gail Rebhan’s About Time, subtitled Four Decades of Photographic Series, is a catalog of a retrospective exhibition at the American University Museum in Washington D.C., on view in early Spring, 2023. Photography is often defined (given the etymology of the word itself) as writing with light. But Rebhan’s work poses the question of whether... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale · When Alfred Stieglitz began his Equivalents series in the early 1920’s, that while looking up into the clouds he attempted to describe more than the visible surface of objects. It was his attempt to express pure emotion, to reveal a parallel universe to his own inner state, and that his photographs could assume... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale · During the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic with the immediate requirement to shelter in place many of us were probably wondering what we were to do, when is this going to end, how am I going to be impacted this, on and on and on. Many, like Amy Elkins, were... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale · The COVID-19 pandemic turned our normal accustomed social interactions on its head and had a huge impact on our global society. In conjunction with the resulting medical misery, many governments implemented home quarantine as a means to limit the spread of this highly contagious virus. It’s one thing to leave and... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • The exhibition catalog that was developed for a traveling group show, Memory is a Verb, Exploring Time and Transience, which unlike many group exhibitions, is remarkable in its diversity by the eleven women who participated in this project. As stated in the foreword, “…brings together eleven women photographic artists exploring the liminal space between... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • The book cover for Christian Kasners recently released photographic book, Woodward, has an interesting graphic design, printed full bleed. The repetitive pattern stirs the memory until it is apparent that this is a tire tread pattern, a subtext for the location of Kasners photo-documentary of Woodward Avenue, one of the main urban... Continue Reading →
LA Art Book Fair, entrance, copyright 2023 Jonas Yip Review by Douglas Stockdale and Gerry Clausing • This August we saw the return of the LA Art Book Fair 2023, which like many art and book fairs had been impacted by COVID 19 in early 2020. This book fair, sponsored by Printed Matter, looked and felt... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • Since 1997 Thomas Kellner has been exploring the artistic possibilities of the photographic film contact sheet, turning the grid structure of the sheet into his artistic playground. He designs and sequences the contact sheet frames in order to build dancing deconstructions of a larger scene. His prior deconstructions have included... Continue Reading →
Review by Matt Schneider • "fever days fleets erected at a dazzling pace rigs roaming the seas sonar boats scanning the ocean floor young men recruited fortunes made conquering frontiers establishing capitalism" (p. 77) Forgotten Seas, by photographer, Tanja Engelberts, is a hefty photobook. By this, I mean that it is large, yes. The book is 216 pages... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • This retrospective publication of Paul Caponigro is not meant to be in anyway inclusive of Caponigro’s entire body of work to date. This beautiful book encompasses some of his most wonderful, if not iconic, visual poems. Many of these same Caponigro’s photographs are what initially enticed me to consider the potential... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 