The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Folklore and rituals are vital components of our ancestral heritage. The stories that were told for many generations survive in one form or another and are enhanced as they are told and retold. I am currently investigating creation mythologies of various groups, and it is amazing how much wisdom and... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The press release for this photobook states, “Vanishing is an unforgettable depiction of how beauty and brutality coexist in the hearts of men and beasts.” I would go even further: Vanishing is the definitive depiction of the range from every imaginable positive daydream through the weightiest nightmares possible, from the... 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 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 →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Some 25 years ago, the group of people known as the Uyghurs, a large ethnic minority in China, primarily of the Islamic faith, were still relatively unencumbered by much outside control. Since then the Chinese government has imposed many procedures on these people that have received international criticism. In 1998,... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • In this increasingly divided world of ours the pressure to conform can at times be overwhelming. We have all been subject to attempts by others to define our behavior, attempts to delineate strict definitions for us to follow that match the preferences of members of another group. Women in some... Continue Reading →
Review by Unmai M. Arokiasamy and Matt Schneider • Outsiders have long struggled to make sense of a Lumbee Indigeneity that does not conform to colonial imaginations of Nativeness. It is against this backdrop that You Don’t Look Native to Me, by Maria Sturm, explores Lumbee culture and their long struggle for tribal recognition –... Continue Reading →
Review by Rudy Vega • When one begins as a prolific photographer and embarks on creating a visual memoir spanning three generations of family, the outcome could very well be Jim Goldberg's Coming and Going. Indeed, it is. The work is also a scrapbook of unvarnished life, with raw documents presented candidly. Thousands of shutter... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • In his very perceptive essay for this photobook, Harry Gallon provides a very important insight: “Place exists as the altar of our everyday existence.” He goes on to discuss the multiple layers of history that weigh heavily on all the locations that were photographed by Ian Howorth for this astonishing... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • To me, the fact that human beliefs can result in the intentional deaths of others has always been an unfathomable tragedy. Whether it is local warfare against minorities or worldwide imperialist campaigns against some groups, the goal in all these instances seems to be the enforcement of the preferences of... Continue Reading →
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