Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook provides us with a refreshing new look at the photographic creations and experiments of Man Ray, especially those from the 1920s and 1930s. It presents interestingly juxtaposed examples of the artist’s work that allow us to compare his style, his excellence in combining light and shadow, as well... Continue Reading →
Bethany Eden Jacobson – Ode To A Cemetery
Review by Brian Rose · During the 2020 pandemic, Bethany Jacobson escaped the confines of her apartment and took to the winding paths of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. For those of us in New York, the whoops and wails of sirens seemed never to cease, a constant reminder of the presence of disease and death in... Continue Reading →
Evgenia Arbugaeva – Hyperborea: Stories from the Arctic
Review by Rudy Vega • Hyperborea: Stories from the Russian Arctic, the latest book by Evgenia Arbugaeva, offers a profound exploration of life in the Siberian Arctic. Published by Thames and Hudson, the book is described as a journey to the most inaccessible Arctic regions of Siberia, showcasing dreamlike encounters with its people, landscapes, and... Continue Reading →
Seymour Licht – Halloween Underground: New York Subway Portraits
Review by Paul Anderson • What better place to look for spooks and monsters than in the dark underground tunnels of the New York subway system? If you are a ghostly inhabitant of that world, what better time to reveal yourself than on Halloween night? Indeed, if you are a photographer seeking glimpses of the... Continue Reading →
Leonard Pongo – The Uncanny
Review by Steve Harp • …pictures have an uncanny ability of suggesting that there is another world…They represent a sense of otherness. The figures in photographs have been muted, and they stare out at you as if they are asking for a chance to say something. - W.G. Sebald The concept of the “uncanny,” which Sigmund Freud... Continue Reading →
Scot Sothern – LOOK AT ME
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Scot Sothern is a very innovative photographer. For this project he decided to mingle with the Hollywood Boulevard people, assuming the guise and behavior of a street person. As people passed by, he yelled “Hey, look at me!” and snapped their pictures with a disposable film camera with flash. A... Continue Reading →
Helga Härenstam – Three Years of Childhood during the Era of Extinction
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This small artist book presents a large challenge. Swedish photographer Helga Härenstam has created a hand-assembled photobook of 34 images just about 4 1/2 inches square in overall size; there is no text inside, so you are dependent on your reactions to the images and on your intuitions. The title... Continue Reading →
Peter van Agtmael – Look at the U.S.A.: A Diary of War and Home
Review by Gerhard Clausing • There are a number of reviews of photobooks about warfare that I have reviewed over the years. You can enter war in the search box and look at as many of them as you like. But none of them are as comprehensive, as complex, and as personal as this one,... Continue Reading →
Florian Reischauer – Pieces of Berlin, ’19–23
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Berlin is most certainly a very complex and dynamic European city. The population includes people from all kinds of countries with all kinds of backgrounds, and at the same time the city shows a great deal of tolerance regarding behavioral idiosyncrasies and various belief systems when you compare it to... Continue Reading →
Susanna Brown – George Hoyningen-Huene: Photography, Fashion, Film
Review by Gerhard Clausing • George Hoyningen-Huene was one of the foremost fashion and celebrity photographers of his time. He was also a participant in filmmaking and various other pursuits. Born in St. Petersburg in 1900, surrounded by Baltic-Russian nobility as well as having part American heritage, he was able to transition, via London and... Continue Reading →