Apr 16, 2020
Review by Douglas Stockdale • In Melissa Borman’s self-published book, A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter, she captures her subjects
A nice review of Melissa Borman’s recent book work.
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Review by Douglas Stockdale • In Melissa Borman’s self-published book, A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter, she captures her subjects
A nice review of Melissa Borman’s recent book work.
One of these signatures must be written in 24-karat gold.
Because the book itself is pretty modest.
The Photograph Commands Indifference
Text and images by Nicholas Muellner
Ithaca, NY: A-Jump Books, 2008
A book that matters. Bernd and Hilla Becher, Blast Furnaces. Matters to me, at least. The photographs remind me of a time in the early 1980s when my ideas about photography were expanding. I spent an hour in the Sonnabend gallery absorbed in a full-scale installation of this work.
If I could go out in the world today I'd pass this book around, across a table, with fellow photobibliophiles. I don't know how, or even if it's possible, to photograph a book in an effective way; there's no satisfying way to share it in a Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime forum. Like trying to drink wine, smoke a hookah, or share pizza with everyone in separate cubicles.
Can our photobookworld discussions continue in virtual form? Maybe we just point out books that matter, good reproductions be damned. We hold a book in our lap, snap a pic, imperfect lighting and all, and share it here on the Tumblr. Add a sentence or two about why it matters to you. And comment about other people's books.
Give it a try?
Does my heart and soul good to see this.
Tulips, Chocolate & Silk--“a celebration of the art of the book & the soul of a library” (namely, that of the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota)--is Natasha’s latest book of photos exploring books. It’s just received a well-deserved nomination for a Minnesota Book Award! Brava!
Today, honoring the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through a just-received book of photographs by Susan Berger collecting streets that have been named to honor King. It’s a gritty and forthright book that derives its strength in part from the poignance of absence. The reproductions tend toward the shadowy greys, and the unenclosed spine leaves an “unfinished” aura that may be consistent with King’s interrupted work as an American leader. Berger traveled around the country from October 2009 to September 2014 to record these streets, boulevards, and drives that keep King’s presence alive in our daily lives. Named thoroughfares bear a rough, daily grace in cities from Los Angeles to Jersey City, Little Rock to Seattle, and Shreveport to Milwaukee.
Judging from the neighborhoods Berger has recorded, King’s legacy lingers as an exhortation to keep rising, keep striving, keep moving along those roads. Don’t rest, there’s a lot of work yet to do. Let me show you the way. “I've seen the Promised Land,” the Reverend Doctor said in his April 3, 1968 address in Memphis. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” King was assassinated the next day. The roads lead on.
Life and Soul: American Streets Honoring Martin Luther King
Photographs by Susan Berger
Foreword by Frank Gohlke
Tucson: Dark Spring Press, 2019
Way to go, Andres! I love what you said about the process of creating the book:
“I arrived at Light Work in 2017 with a backpack full of hard drives and negatives not knowing what was to come of my time at the residency. A month later, with the help and feedback from Light Work staff, I had a book dummy ready to print. It makes me very happy to come full circle and have Light Work co-publish American Origami with Fw:Books."
Melissa Lazuka, Fly Away, Copyright 2019 Artist: Melissa Lazuka (born Cleveland, OH, resides Chardon, Ohio) Self-Published, Ohio Without essays, pagination or captions Text: English Hardcover slip-…
Here’s an excellent example of the contemporary photobook as sculptural object. I haven’t seen this in person, so it’s hard to testify to its photographic aspects. But I enjoy the sense I get from these images that the pages resemble vintage prints that are peeling and discoloring around the edges. There’s a true handmade esthetic that seems quite compelling. But again, I’d need to experience Fly Away first-hand to sense its balance between “photobook” and book object. Do the materials of its construction overwhelm the imagery, or do they create a harmony of means and ends? The jury is still out.