The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Hans Hickerson · Disarmingly direct and unassuming, Tom Lyon and Pauline Vanden Neste’s On est venus ici pour la vue presents people and places in the Aurore neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium. Built in the 1960s, the neighborhood comprises seven high-rise apartment blocks set among green spaces along a canal. Like other engineered housing... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Qeshm Island in the strategic Persian Gulf has been in the news lately. It is a large island of about 600 square miles, just off the coast of Iran in the Straight of Hormuz. In 2018 in more peaceful times Kuwaiti photographer Huda Abdulmughni visited Qeshm. She stayed in a... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • This stunning book—a joy to hold and behold—captured and held my attention for hours. Carefully designed to reflect the art of bookmaking itself, this custom volume employs traditional presswork on the cover, bespoke papers throughout, stunning images, and thoughtfully chosen typography, all curated to honor the historical and visual essence... Continue Reading →
Review by Olga Bubich · Atlantic is a new photobook by the Ukraine-born photographer, curator, and publisher Dimitri Bogachuk, whose delicate work and attentive eye for seascapes have established him as a distinctive voice in contemporary art photography. Formally, the collection can be seen as the extension of the artist’s previous volume entitled Le Plat... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · A contemporary trend in photobooks is to be clever and mix in various and sundry subjects in an attempt to add meaning and depth. Sometimes this works, but often it doesn’t and just comes across as empty attention seeking. Artists who share meaningful issues stand out. Usually it is because... Continue Reading →
Review by Olga Bubich · Sometimes what draws a collector towards a photobook is a name – that of a photographer whose eye and voice one trusts, a designer whose choices one allows to curate personal collections, or a small independent publisher whose selectiveness, often conditioned by financial limitations, makes each of their projects immediately... Continue Reading →
Photo essay and synopsis by Brian O’Neill · Printed Matter Inc. was established in New York in the 1980s in response to the growing interest surrounding artist books, zines, and artist driven publications. Their art book fairs have now become must-do destinations for art publishers, collectors, and enthusiasts. The inaugural fair in New York was... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Less can definitely be more. Vladyslav Krasnoshchok’s Documentation of the War, for example, views like visual grunge rock – sound stripped down to its core. Like other successful photobooks it is a happy partnership of photography, texts, and design. How to describe Krasnoshchok’s photographs? Adjectives like bleak, dark, raw, primal,... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Move over Barbie and Ken. Make way for Ken and Grant, the homonormative protagonists of Matthew Finley’s An Impossibly Normal Life, a script-flipping fantasy that views the world through a gay lens. The book is an imagined photo album that doesn’t talk about sexual orientation. Instead, it embodies queerness by... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • How well do we know our extended family? How would we connect with our family’s history? What was important to them; their hopes and dreams? What can we truly understand about them if they are no longer able to provide the answers to our many questions? If even a little... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 