Giancarlo Mori | Blog

The Independent Photo Book

If you like photo books as much as I do, or even if you're just serious about photography, check out The Independent Photo Book blog. A new creature of Joerg Colberg's (of Conscientious fame) and Hester's of Mrs Deane, the blog presents new independently published photo books and zines not available through the the commercial book circuit (including online stores.)

Visit it often. It's well worth your time if you want to  stay current about photo books' evolution. Innovation will likely come from some of these independent producers.

Esthetics of the Exhibition Space...

In a previous post I emphatically stated my interest for "a treatment about the esthetics of the modern exhibition space". One such a treatment is just being published by Yale University Press: Charlotte Klonk's Spaces of Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000.

According to Brian Sholis in Frieze Magazine: "Thirty years ago, artist and writer Brian O'Doherty revealed some of the political and economic implications of the 'white cube'. It is, we now acknowledge, anything but a neutral container. While O'Doherty's polemic holds up well, it doesn't address at length how such design features as coloured walls, wainscotting and decorative furnishings were slowly excised from the typical gallery environment. Art historian Charlotte Klonk's limited but engaging study Spaces of Experience traces just this history." Promising indeed.

Here is the book at Amazon.

 
 

What's in a photograph? Re-reading John Berger (part I)

I have been re-reading John Berger's essays lately, with the same gusto as before... as every time, I might add. 

(Note to the improbable reader: for those not familiar with Berger, do read his work and a little about him... especially if intelligence and intellectual independence are traits you value and appreciate. Starting at Wikipedia perhaps.)

{ Note: I am fascinated by theoretical/intellectual debate, when honest and passionate. There is too little and too much of it going on, at the same time, all the time... You can read some on political and cultural blogs, art sites, online "salons"... with much of what is being discussed so oddly/poorly/incorrectly framed to have no significance... with many of those involved denying that they are even engaging in intellectual debate. Ss if reducing high discourse to common banter could do any ideas justice. }

More topically, one of the questions that have long interested me... that I have debated, principally with myself... is what a photograph really is, its relationships with other visual arts, its independence from painting or graphic design for example, what is admissible and what is not, the very meaning of "norm"... 

In that context, a short essay by Berger is... as always... controversial, sane, and highly enlightening: "Understanding a Photograph", originally published in The Look of Things (1972), starts with the following passage: "For over a century, photographers and their apologists have argued that photography deserves to be considered a fine art."

It then quickly posits: "It now seems clear that photography deserves to be considered as though it were not a fine art." Not a hesitation, not a doubt. His truth as a jab, right there before you, as a clear, unambiguous assertion. It would seem the statement might close the case. But there, under the surface, a pressing question remains. One question that I find more interesting than the answer... more on that soon.

He then continues with a statement I cannot agree with, but that provides one of the central contentions about photography today: "We must rid ourselves of a confusion brought about by continually comparing photography with the fine arts. Every handbook on photography talks about composition. The good photograph is the well-composed one. Yet this is only true in so far as we think of photographic images imitating painted ones. Painting is an art of arrangement: therefore it is reasonable to demand that there is some kind of of order in what is arranged." Here it is, black on white, the cracks of our craft, it's center, continually debated, courted and brushed off, disassembled and marked as a lie.

(to be continued...)

Looking in: Robert Frank's The Americans

A few weeks ago I received my copy of "Looking in: Robert Frank's The Americans" a voluminous new book published by Steidl for the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and edited by Sarah Greenough for the 50th anniversary of publication of The Americans.

Looking In is published in two editions: the expanded edition - the one in my possession - a heavy and voluminous tome of about 530 pages, which includes extensive analysis of The Americans, an in-depth portrayal of Frank's experience before and after his arrival in America, and an impressive survey of all of the original materials for the Guggenheim grant that secured Frank the funds for his project; plus the original and unedited contact sheets and a comparative review of the various editions of The Americans. The lighter paperback edition contains all of the text of the hardcover edition, but lacks all of the contact sheets, the sequencing and cropping pages from the various editions, and the correspondence and archive materials.  

This is an amazing labor of love. Love for photography, its book form, and above all for Robert Frank's seminal work on 1950's America. But it is also a great learning tool that every photographer can use to study one of the master photographers of the last 100 years, study him at work, his editing approach, the thousands of rejects that did not make the final set, the amount of changes that have gone into the various editions of the book (which defy the naive and common view of the photograph as a static work of art to be revered and celebrated, and the actual dynamic/evolutionary aspect of the real workings of a photographer dedicated to the quality of his work.) 

The book's publication coincides with an exhibition by the same name, which runs Jan 19th--Apr 26 at the NGA in DC; at the SF MoMA, May 16--Aug 23; at the Met, Sep 22--Dec27.

I bought my copy on Amazon (Amazon.com: Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans, Expanded Edition: Sarah Greenough, Robert Frank: Books)

The cover of the book (© 2009 Sarah Greenough for Steidl)

More on Photo Books Websites

On Oct 28th I posted an entry about "Photo Book Guide", which unfortunately seems to have paused or stopped its activity.

One more photography book-related website (still active, at the time of writing) that does a thorough job reporting and commenting on photographic books is 5b4. The site seems to have been active for almost two years and has covers a varied and extensive range of books.

Style and opinions are personal and I have frequently used it as a resource in the past to see what is being published, as well as have a non publisher-sponsored/supported review.

The site has been active since 2007, and the frequency of posts is quite high, and seems to average 6-10 entries per month (not a precise figure, just a guestimate). Some of the latest entries include:

• Gabriel Figueroa 
• Kamerad Im Westen: 221 Bilder
• Emmet Gowin Photographs reprint
• These Birds Walk Books
• Navel by Yukikazu Ito
• Inside In by Vera Lutter

The site is edited and supported by Jeff Ladd, photographer and printer based in Brooklyn, NY and seems to be well known among photography books buffs, with most entries sporting several reader's comments. Also, attached to the site is 5B4 Photobook Exchange, one more sites curated by Jeff and dedicated "to match up neglected photo and art books with new and loving owners" respectively.

Overall a very good site that lovers of photography and books should use and support.

(The 5B4 Site Banner)

"America Swings"

Naomi Harris' "America Swings" has come to Los Angeles, at the M + B gallery in Beverly Hills. The exhibit displays the work of the young New York based photographer, who has spent five years traveling across America documenting the sexual habits of over three million Americans active in the swinging lifestyle. Taschen has recently published the project in book form, and you can see some of its pictures at Naomi's website.

This is a very interesting exhibit for clear social and documentary reasons... knowledge engenders tolerance, does it not?... although it is very likely to also beget controversy and strong adverse reactions. At first glance, and for a purely personal taste and artistic viewpoint, Harris' style is not, to my eyes, particularly exciting, but I will visit the exhibit and write more detailed thoughts of this show very soon. 

The show will remain open from Oct 25 till Dec 6th. The M + B gallery is at 612 North Almont Drive, Los Angeles, http://www.mbfala.com/.

Book cover (© 2008 Taschen and Naomi Harris)

Some of the pictures from the exhibit (all © 2008 Naomi Harris)

Photobook Guide

If you like photo books like I do, here's a site for you: Photo Book Guide. 

Even if the web today provides an unprecedented opportunity to keep current with what happens in the photography world -- sometimes to a fault (as in too-much-information-too-little-time) -- books still provide a unique experience, physical, tactile, of a photographer's work. There is... at least for me... an undeniable fetish involved in leafing through the sumptuous pages of a book, the smell and feeling of paper and ink, less ephemeral than bits on a screen, that makes the enjoyment more real and permanent, sensuous and voluptuous in a way that the web rarely achieves.

In the words of the author, from PhotbookGuide itself: "Photobookguide.com aims to show the history of photography reflected through the photo book. [...] PhotobookGuide.com celebrates that long, rich history by presenting a web survey of landmark photo books."

I am a great fan of the Web and of the creative potential of digital photography, but it is good (and in a way humbling) to remind ourselves that photography was born of very corporeal processes, and that freedom of expression can't dispense from the discipline that comes from the established methods of the craft. Creating a book is a daunting job, and it is good that so many photographers still decide to make a book part of their work; that small batch printing makes them affordable for so many...

Not all of the reviews on PhotobookGuide.com are as insightful or interesting, but they are all well written and informative, and I definitely applaud the effort that goes into maintaining the site.

The site has good structure, a traditional layout (by which I mean, non-flashy and economic in its design -- non necessarily a bad thing these days), it is readable, with good a classification of its posts by Genre and Author. The posts are concise and the author does not make too much of an effort to push his point of view on his readers (one more positive trait in the din of the Internet.)

Some of its latest posts include:

• Deconstructing Osama

• Grace in mundanity

• A damaged box of possibilities

• Martin Parr's favourite photography books of 2007 

• Photo Notes, and more

• Specimina Commercii

The site also contains links to many other good links related to photo books and photography in general, as well as a forum section. 

All in all, a good solid site that everyone interested in photography should peruse. I have read its posts regularly in the past and referred it to others, but since its latest post seems to have been published in December 2007, it is unclear whether the site is still being actively supported. I have sent an inquiry out and will report back after I hear from the author.... hoping bearing positive news...

"The Americans"

"The Americans" by Robert Frank (1958) is one of the most influential -- and at the time, controversial -- photography books of the XX century. With a jazzing introduction by Jack Kerouac, and 180 pages and 83 examples of beautiful, haunting, piercing photography, it changed the way the world regarded the medium, establishing a new canon for the craft, and made a profound statement about America... 

Frank, with his idiosyncratic, and unorthodox style, his apparent carelessness for form, the grainy texture of many a photograph, their skewed horizons... struck a nerve with many in the art establishment ofAmerica. All the while suggesting the official country had a more somber counterpart just waiting to be found, if one was willing to look. "The Americans" places itself squarely, and with unwilling authority, in the lineage of Evans' South and Smith's Pittsburg. It is a work of daunting and penetrating observation.

Frank's style has since found many followers, but its depth and quality (that has wabi-sabi purity and roughness) survives even today, after 50 years of circulating in book form and being shown around the world in galleries and museums.

After many years of being out of print, and only available as an expensive and hard to find collector item, Steidl has released the book once again last May. Steidl's perfect tri-tone reproduction of the original photographs, printed on very high quality paper, is a long awaited and finally affordable homage to one of my favorite photographic books ever published.

Some images from the book... 

(All Images © Robert Frank) 

 

 

 

Wuming Foundation

Occasionally we run into a web site that just must be mentioned. Whether it's about photography or not.

www.wumingfoundation.com is one of those. It is a site about books, and it is from the minds of 4 anonymous Italian writers. I could not resist passing it along.

Their latest opus is 54 (US cover below). I think it's great but check it out and make up your own mind.