Welcome to Issue #7 (October 2019) • The month of November is the beginning of the Fall photobook season in preparation for the end of year gift buying holidays, and many new titles have become available. So we are busy with a new batch of book reviews and related book events, two of which on the left coast we feature in... Continue Reading →
Valentina Neri – Almanacco Toilet Club
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The ‘Toilet Club Milano’ is an Italian night club that welcomes people of all sexual orientations. It has a special place in the LGBTQ world, and features performers that present themselves in drag. Valentina Neri has woven a fascinating narrative around these ‘drag queens,’ including many visual and verbal cues... Continue Reading →
Madhu Joseph John – The Passenger
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This ambitious project by Madhu Joseph John raises some challenging questions: Who are we, and where does our journey take us? Are our differences in appearance, age, location, preferences and our levels of experience really so important that we will allow them to be used as a basis for dividing... Continue Reading →
Brenda Ann Kenneally – UPSTATE GIRLS
Review by Melanie Chapman • “A magnum opus project spanning 14 years, UPSTATE GIRLS documents’ the troubles and triumphs of a group of friends and their extended families in upstate New York.” For many years now, I have indulged in two great passions. One is photography, the other is what I jokingly refer to as... Continue Reading →
Cristiano Volk – Sinking Stone
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook by Cristiano Volk is all about the mysterious and historic Venice, Italy. It is a novel view of a place that has been incessantly photographed, resulting in zillions of predictable tourist snapshots that imitate tourism brochures. The city is built on islands, always poised to battle the surrounding... Continue Reading →
Naomi Harris – EUSA
Review by Gerhard Clausing • In a 1953 episode of the very dated and otherwise questionable American TV series Amos and Andy, the character Kingfish is shown pretending to be a French teacher, incongruously using a poster of the old German-American entertainment/nostalgia “Schnitzelbank” song. He tries to convince his ‘student’ that it is the finest... Continue Reading →
Nancy Baron – The Good Life > Palm Springs
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Baron investigates an eccentric, if not at times surreal, city and the lifestyle of a smattering of equally eccentric citizens located in the arid desert of Southern California. She is drawn to the unique desert architecture which spawn the mid-century designs built to stylishly survive the intense arid heat before... Continue Reading →