The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Brooke DiDonato’s Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer subverts everyday life quietly from within. The photographs infiltrate our reality, introducing small impossibilities, spatial contradictions, and bodily misalignments that accumulate into a sustained, disorienting logic, characterizing a topsy-turvy world through a certain amount of disturbance, which in turn invites contemplation.... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • If we compare the planet with a communal apartment, we occupy the direst room. - Aleksei Yablokov, Environmental Advisor to Boris Yeltsin The Russian Urals is the subject of Alan Gignoux’s recent artist-photobook, Russian Rustbelt, documenting the Ural industrial region during a residency with the National Centre for Contemporary Art in Yekaterinburg in... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook presents a narrative of the collision of several parallel realities, both current and historical. A pristine lake, the largest in a Polish province, lies in the vicinity of a major airport and an airbase, both of which also constituted a prime nuclear target in case World War III... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This fascinating photobook combines images of two seemingly unrelated subjects, old cars and cattle. In recent travels across the United States, Ute Behrend was struck by the ubiquitous presence of these two elements throughout the landscape. As we involve ourselves in the contents and juxtapositions found in this project, we... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • A first look through Magdalena Wysocka’s photobook Studies of Falls can be a very mysterious experience. There is nothing here to help point the way. The images are vague, there is no introductory text, there are no image captions, and no artist statement. There is, however, an important hint printed... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Nature demands our attention as well as our contemplation. Even more important, it requires us to be ever mindful as custodians of what has been around for millions of years. As Lynne Buchanan states in her afterword in this book, nature can help us deal with “the darkness of the... 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 Gerhard Clausing • Environmental destruction and climate change certainly constitute a universal problem. Resources are limited, and both humans and other creatures have their needs to fulfill. Nick Brandt is an artist with a big heart and an even bigger conscience, and in his work, he calls attention to these disturbing global trends.... Continue Reading →
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