How does one begin to excavate memories that lie in the distressed trough of the murder of a loved one? When he was seven years old, Jean-Michel André was staying at a hotel with his father and his father’s new girlfriend in Avignon, France, when a robbery turned into a homicide with both his father […]
Nikita Teryoshin returns with another great book in 2024. The German artist continues his typological studies following his award-winning long-term project Nothing Personal (GOST) on private arms dealing fairs. Nikita is the master of working on short—and long-term projects that keep him moving. This strategy is excellent because it allows short-term ideas to become books, filling […]
Within the context of death, I have spoken about, and I am sure that I am not alone in this, the strange feeling when a person, persona, and life slip from the realm of the personable to the world of an object, a thing, a husk, though still loved, ultimately lacking the anima necessary to […]
Bryan Schutmaat is a photographer of the American West. His work is dedicated to sites along the interstate highway — forgotten mining towns, abandoned truck stops, weathered billboards, the garbage scattered across dirt roads. What he is attracted to is the region’s extremes: the harsh desert sun, its arid fields, trash heaps of tires, the […]
I know very little about architecture. I am aware of certain Starchitects, of which Mexican architect Luis Barragán could be considered part of the milieu. A starchitect is one of the high-profile architects who became a household name. A list of starchitects could include, but is not limited to, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Frank […]
Some photobooks are detailed by their direct exercises in story building. In contrast, others ask that the viewer read them holistically as an environment, a stage in which ideas are distributed, but with fewer absolutes regarding their nature. Hints are dropped, and some images carry the conceptual load of what the press release suggests as […]
2024 has been an excellent year for photobooks. I am surprised that after the past few years with fewer titles surfacing into greatness, 2024 has presented so many outstanding titles. It gives me a bit of hope that the medium is picking up again, though I suspect inflation and a general shrinkage of audience […]
Paul Graham’s new books Ambergris/Verdigris, published this year by MACK, have several parallels worth exploring. First and foremost, it should be said that these titles feel like a return to form. While I am a fan of most of Graham’s bodies of works, the last books have been very inward and family-oriented. There is […]
Moises Saman is one of the most substantive and accomplished conflict photographers working today. A member of Magnum since 2014, he is best known for photographs he has been making for more than two decades working throughout the Middle East, during which time he covered the Iraq War and the Arab Spring. Many of the […]
Letting my unconscious, rather than my intellect, dictate the progression was important. For reasons I don’t entirely understand, being nude became part of the project early on. And working against that white wall near the two front windows in the so-called living room became a central point. —Melissa Shook I might’ve mistakenly read Sally Stein’s […]
The discourse surrounding this book is less bleak than the images themselves. Being a fan of Michael Ashkin’s work, I find this book to be his bleakest, yet when I read his words about the meaning of the book, I do not get the impression that it is necessarily its intention. First, we will start […]
Everything in this book reminds me of my upbringing in the Midwest. It feels so painfully familiar. When I mention pain in my assessment, it is because some of this experience gnaws at me and upends the chapters of my life that I have found hard to celebrate or close. I am woefully disobedient […]