The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Wayne Swanson • Colorado may be known as a land of snow-capped peaks, ski slopes, and the mystique of a certain bland beer brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water. But that’s just the half of it. Head east from Denver, and you enter another world. A flat, semi-arid world. A world of dust. ... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • We all know Cuba as that land of classic but disintegrating American cars, Fidel Castro, cigar-making and smoking, the evils of communism, classic but crumbling architecture, and béisbol. Yet all of these stereotypes are centered on the nation’s few urban centers. In reality, 85% of Cuba is rural. “Cuba was from its dawn... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • War, conflict and then its aftermath can create terrible consequences for man-kind. But what if what occurs afterward is benign and seemingly without any drama? Could this justify the conflict or afford one the opportunity to ignore or look away? This appears to be the indirect question raised by Emanuel Cederqvist’s... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • It starts a ways up Pacific Coast Highway from Malibu and ends 50 miles to the east, a bit past the HOLLYWOOD sign. It’s Mulholland Highway in the west and Mulholland Drive in the east, with a dirt path in the middle. But it’s all simply Mulholland in the mythology of... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • A friend used to say “I don’t know if I miss New York, or if I just miss my twenties…” After looking through NEW YORKERS, the recent photobook by Sally Davies, the most likely response will be a resounding “YES!” to both. No matter your age or era, if you’ve... Continue Reading →
Review by Rudy Vega • Catherine Opie epitomizes what it means to be a prolific artist as Phaidon’s recent release, Catherine Opie aptly showcases. It is a handsome hardcover book of 338 pages of which 300 are of images, including 6 gatefolds. Additionally, there is an introductory essay, and three additional essays serving as lead-ins to the chapters,... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • This book is part retrospective with an autobiography about the early phase of Neil Folberg’s long photographic career, and part portfolio for early unpublished body of work. As an interesting combination of biography and portfolio, it is front-loaded with his personal reflections on his career change to photography while studying at... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • The classic 20th-century typologies of basic building types by Bernd and Hilla Becher are a hard act to follow. But Thomas Kellner puts a 21st-century spin on them in this monograph with the mouthful title Fachwerkhäuser des Siegener Industriegebietes heute (half-timbered houses of the Siegen industrial area today). From the late 1950s to... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp • I find surreal one of the most consistently misused of words, not only in art contexts but in general usage as well. Most often the speaker will mean visually fantastic or simply unbelievable. However, this is far from the concept of “surrealism” as offered by Andre Breton in his manifestos. For Breton, surreal meant... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • It is possible to develop many misconceptions about people and countries that we don’t know much about. Some of those views may be based on one-sided reports and specifically slanted selections of what is shown and described to us. It is equally common for journalists and photojournalists to concentrate on... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 