The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Sublimation of grief is a partial remedy that artists can use to make life more bearable. Julia Vandenoever, having lost her mother to cancer and her brother to addiction, was able to see connections between her own childhood and that of her own children growing up, with parallel events and... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • In these very dangerous times, democracy as well as the human race seem to be on the chopping block – two things at the core of our continuing existence. We find that the principles which we once thought were ironclad and generally permanently accepted suddenly are considered pliable and bendable,... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • An apt way to describe Ewa Monika Zebrowski’s artist book, van gogh’s bed, is that it has punctum, a work of art that is imbued with emotional impact. Which also serves as a subtle clue, for those who are familiar with Roland Barthes, the late French philosopher, as to the indirect subject of this body... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Not too long ago, the term “abandoned moments” meant images that we would toss aside: subject not significant enough, not sharp enough, some blurring or out-of-focus areas, camera movement, and more. Well, nowadays that is the stuff that the finest photographic art is made of; they are the central techniques... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook presents quite a challenge, and I found it also deeply touching in many ways, having spent several weeks with it ... and I am not done yet, by far. So many discoveries ... Helga Härenstam came upon a nearly 300-year-old poem, James Thomson’s The Seasons. That work, popular... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • A friendship that can be traced back to our youth and has lasted into the present is something to be treasured and celebrated, if we are lucky enough to have such close ties to another person. Solarski and Liboska can share recollections that go back 30 years, to their early... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Throughout the 20th Century there were some artists that overcame the traditional rules of “straight” photography and dared to take liberties with their interpretation of reality by means of special effects. Those working in the style of pictorialism come to mind, as well as the forerunner of digital manipulation, William... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Winning a competition is surely the goal of the participants. If the outcome is not what one expected, disappointment is often the result. When one is very young and has raised a special animal for a competition at a county fair, this emotional roller coaster can be most intense. Pride... Continue Reading →
Review by Kristin Dittrich • The greatest challenge for parents-to-be in starting their own family is to switch back and forth between a wide variety of roles and to combine them harmoniously. For the man, this means that on the one hand he is expected to be a reliable partner, the responsible “head of the... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Visual narration is an exciting endeavor in contemporary photobooks. Fact and fiction can reach some artful intermingling in this area. But while the creation of fiction in verbal narration/literature (short stories, novels, folk tales, to name just a few genres) has been widely accepted for centuries, and the creation of... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 