The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Rudy Vega • The cover of Mark Gill’s photobook The Airborne Toxic Event shows a solitary figure crossing an intersection dressed in a red, full-length hooded jacket wearing a mask, carrying a couple of tote bags and, oddly, wearing open-toed sandals. The man in red, as it turns out, is also the only... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Ah, street art and graffiti — the color, the raw energy, the in-your-face graphics. They are such inviting targets for photographers. But how do you make them your own? Photographer Bill Wishner succeeds by going beyond mere documentation to turn them into collaborations. Wishner spent seven years traveling to cities... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Americans have always exercised their right to demonstrate and protest, and the peaceful public expression of a multitude of opinions has always been the basis of a healthy democracy. After all, governments always implement a series of compromises, and the majority will usually stand behind major decisions, but it is... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Mardi Gras in New Orleans is an old tradition. Just as is the case in Europe and elsewhere, there are religious and tribal underpinnings to these liberating rituals that have been around for many centuries. Of special importance is the fact that participants can assume alternate identities; they can feel... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • “Beautiful, interesting… and sometimes cruel.” If Robert Frank had played in a punk rock band, how would that have influenced his work? What kind of images would he have made? Luckily, we have Tatsuo Suzuki’s new photobook Friction/Tokyo Street to answer that question. Wow. What an exciting book! One cannot... Continue Reading →
Review by Kristin Dittrich • When her photobook reached me for review, I had to put it aside at first. Benita Suchodrev’s Of Lions and Lambs weighs a hefty 5 kg and comprises more than 360 pages. In the past, books like this one contained an artist’s life’s work; today, other standards exist in many... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • It’s been more than half a century since Robert Frank stirred things up with his first major work, The Americans. Some of what he, the outsider, observed in regard to racial inequality and strife, economic hardships, and political swagger are still in need of improvement even as these lines are... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Having recently reviewed the contemporary street photography of Allen Wheatcroft, Body Language, and also having heard about the controversy surrounding the work of Butturini, I was certainly curious to take a closer look at this photobook as well. The book is marked “Edited by Martin Parr” on the cover, and... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • We expect contemporary street photography to go beyond what was traditional, which often sought out dingy and dreary locations and moments to show the lesser side of things. We expect contemporary street photographers to capture the dynamic nature of city hustle and bustle, people unobserved and interactively pursuing their business,... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Is trying to explain Garry Winogrand’s photographs an interesting challenge or a fool’s errand? After all, Winogrand repeatedly rebuffed attempts to philosophize about his work with statements like “You’re talking about meaning. I want to talk about the pictures.” Nevertheless, Geoff Dyer gives it a shot in this big book of... Continue Reading →
