Writer Melisande McBurnie, Photographer Stine Sampers

Camden by Jean-Christian Bourcart – Images en Manœuvres Editions

Bourcart’s most recent publication – what could almost be described as a photo journal – sees him set foot into one of Americas most malignant areas. It portrays the subject in complete disarray, caught off guard. It’s as if the state had just come and repossessed the bed, the fridge, even the roof, just as he was about to click the shutter. Q-tips litter the floor, along with pen caps and exposed cables. From bitter cold streets to sticky tarmac and, every so often, a gesture, a kiss, an embrace. This is the stuff of “shit”… All the things you weren’t supposed to see. And to think he simply googled “most+dangerous+city+america”, result “Camden.”

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Gone? by Robert Adams – Steidl

In his latest book Gone?, Robert Adams take us on a “Hansel and Gretel” journey into the landscape of a recollection based in Colorado. Shot in black and white, a series of photos taken in the 1980s document the slow evolution of a once wild region. Revisiting a place, where as a young boy Adams walked and the impact it now plays on reshaping his memory, Gone? is the disappearance of personal landmarks, of how one got from A to B and all the little pit stops in-between. There is something engaging upon seeing Adams’ vast lands devoid of colour that leaves us with an urge to fill it in, a true scrapbook of sorts. One can’t help but want to remember with him of how it used to be.

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Black and White by Ellsworth Kelly – Hatje Cantz
Investigating the interplay of positive and negative, form versus colour and the space that surrounds us, Ellsworth Kelly brings us back to basics. With over six decades of study and observation into his everyday surroundings, having first gained worldwide acclaim for his paintings and drawings, Kelly now presents us with Black and White. Asking the viewers’ approach to be that of a child, who learns from disassembling and reassembling, the result is engaging and playful – looking somewhat simple at first sight though closer inspection reveals there’s an equation behind each move, a “working out” so to speak, a consideration of weight, balance and its tipping point. Indeed we are left with a querying feeling of “What came first?”

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Red Roses Yellow Rain by Marrigje de Maar – Hatje Cantz
In Red Roses Yellow Rain, Marrigje captures the more humble abodes and their interiors over a period of several visits to the “Motherland”, a country rapidly hurtling into modernisation. Here she allows us to spy into a culture still steaming with history and traditions. A domestic journey into communist China and what lies behind the wall. It’s almost like walking onto the set of a Zhang Yimou film. The classic coral-red and jade-green with floral flasks and pink plastic bags taking on a form of true “minimal-decor” all captured with that similar somber light. So inviting are these images, one can almost smell the tea brewing.

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Far Too Close by Martina Hoogland Ivanow – Steidlmack
Far Too Close entangles the boundaries between familiar and foreign. Drawing the viewer into something of a secret and what lurks in its shadows, Ivanow depicts the features of an almost faceless person, making it near impossible to make out where one subject ends and the other begins. Having traveled extensively over a seven year period to remote places such as Siberia, Sakhalin Island and Tierra del Fuego, on the southern tip of Argentina, the photographer sets out to explore and capture a personal history of “home”. The shape of sheets are here and the place on a pillow where a head had rested.

Available from Amazon

(First published in the white album)

Photographer Yana Foqué

Places, strange and quiet (2011) by Wim Wenders – Hatje Cantz

At times intriguing, at others downright hilarious, Wim Wenders’ photography captures the everyday absurdities he encounters on his many travels – everything from oversized cowboys sporting Wrangler denim skirts to windowless backyard sheds and deserted former submarine assembly plants. With characteristic wit, the celebrated filmmaker creates visual statements on non-descript places which draw meaning not from their subject matter but, rather, from Wenders’ watchful gaze, and the notes accompanying each photograph. Opposite a photograph depicting a Bavarian policeman looking onto Italian activists running amok through a field for example, the sentence reads: “The G8 in Germany…Protesters ran through the fields, Italian activists carrying a sign PACE. A Bavarian policeman turned to his colleague: “Look, these idiots don’t even know how to spell PEACE.””  It’s simple, self-explanatory and works wonders. Pure Wenders.

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Behind the zines: Self-publishing culture (2011) – Gestalten

However limited their print run, the impact self-published fanzines have had on the growth of certain counter-cultures and musical movements make them the undeniable and ultimate voice of independent thinking. The precursor to blogs, what really distinguished these homemade, low budget boutique publications was their approach to art direction, graphic design and production. Antiquated print presses were preserved merely to achieve a particular finish, paper stocks mixed-and-matched to rainbow effect, 3D typefaces created out of pure ‘zine zeal and binding techniques so advanced even the Japanese couldn’t catch up. An exhaustive, well put together and, above all, accurate survey of the culture in itself, Behind the zines manages to succinctly capture the movement’s essence without reading like a how to guide.

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In a lonely place (2011) by Gregory Crewdson – Hatje Cantz

Best known for his highly staged, film-like photography, Crewdson also has a more intimate and intuitive side to his work, one which somehow seems more improvised and less restrained. Although the celebrated photographer shot to prominence with his sometimes glacial series Beneath the Roses (2003-2008), Crewdson manages to counter his tendency towards the pre-determined with rather more personal series such as Sanctuary (2009), a black and white documentary which captures Fellini’s famed Cinecitta studios in Rome, or Fireflies (1996), which reflects the artist’s interest in nature. In each of the series though, Crewdson’s ability to contrast an overriding sense of sadness with an unquestionable and somewhat naïve beauty remains the unsettling element that makes of his visual aesthetic one of the most innovative in contemporary photography today.

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From Polaroid to Impossible (2011) – Hatje Cantz

Along with the demise of the Polaroid Corporation came the realisation that its legendary Polaroid Collection housed in New York and Europe would need to be auctioned off to pay off angry creditors and administrators. Aghast, a movement made of artists, museums and photography lovers and led by the Polaroid-perfected artist Chuck Close came to life, mobilising itself to ensure preservation of the 16,000-strong collection which includes instant photography by the likes of Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and Helmut Newton. The group succeeded in its quest to avoid a sale, and this book is the result of their perseverance.

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Global Denim (2011) by Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward – Berg Publisher

The dominance denim enjoys over other textiles in the fashion industry is unparalleled. It’s a natural monopoly of the global uniform, one which has rarely been investigated. From the streets of Mumbai and the back alleys of Mexico City to the urban townships of middle America and the rural villages of central Africa, nothing says effortless cool the way a pair of jeans does – be they boot cuts, slim fits or baggies. But what, exactly, makes them so ubiquitous? What is their anthropological meaning when taken in their local contexts? At times a heavy read that can make you feel like you’re back at college, Global Denim uses the Great Depression, Bollywood screenings and Rio de Janeiro’s funk balls to reach a set of conclusions explaining the unquestionable rise of denim as the global garment of the world.

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Jeff Wall, The Crooked Path (2011) – Bozar Books and Ludion

The accompanying book to the Canadian photographer’s monumental exhibition of the same name currently on show at Brussels’ Bozar, The Crooked Path represents Wall’s attempt to make sense of his body of work in a very public manner by contextualising it, confronting it even, to the works of his contemporaries and icons. Using as starting point a simple picture of a landscape, Wall proceeds to historically reference his work – large-scale photography framed in light boxes for the most part – opting for total transparency as far as inspiration goes: he makes no secret, for example, of having taken inspiration from Delacroix’s La Mort de Sardanapale for The Destroyed Room, his 1978 depiction of a ransacked room. And that is the beauty of Wall’s work: conscious of its debt to the past, but keen to translate it for the future.

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(first published in the blue album)

Photography Joke De Wilde

Photography Yassin Serghini

From top to bottom: Black and white (Steidl), Verses and versions (Harcourt Inc), Yesterday’s sandwich (Phaidon), 7KM (Snoeck), Red star over Russia (Tate), Vania (Gestalten)

Verses and Versions; Three Centuries of Russian Poetry (2008) – Selected and translated by Vladimir Nabokov – Harcourt Inc

Think Nabokov and Lolita is bound to be the first thing you think of. Though he gained worldwide acclaim through his novels, the Russian writer was also a formidable literary critic, chess player and linguistic doyen. Collected for the first time in one volume are Nabokov’s translations of Russian poetry, set along their original Russian versions as well as capsule profiles of the poets, including the greats such as Pushkin, Lermontov and Fet. Not just a mere anthology, this is a master class in the hopes, risks and thrills of translating. Don’t expect perfect facsimiled versions but instead an appreciation of one of Russia’s greatest literary minds executing a passion with the discursive and eloquent style he is famed for.

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7KM (2009) – Kirill Golochenko – Snoeck

Europe’s largest marketplace lies on 70 hectares of what used to be wheat fields and a waste processing plant, seven kilometres from Odessa. This photographic series captures the workings of this ‘Field of Wonders’ that dates back to the Second World War and which developed from the most famous flea market in the Soviet Union. Documenting the people, commodities and conditions of this rather surreal and remarkable place, Golochenko depicts its streets of containers organised by bright colours and market stalls filled with wedding dresses, inflatable’s and imitation tiger rugs, everything a person could ever possibly need, or not. A celebration of kitsch and post-soviet wonderland.

Available from Amazon

Yesterday’s Sandwich (2007) – Boris Mikhailov – Phaidon

Hailed by many as one of the most, if not the most, influential photographers from the former Soviet Union, Boris Mikhailov’s work has left an indelible imprint on contemporary photography. Famous for his disturbingly honest Case History series, capturing the silent despair and social disintegration following the collapse of the Soviet Union in a full frontal manner, his early work deserves equal mention. The intriguing Yesterday’s Sandwich (1966) series resulted from a simple accident, when Mikhailov inadvertently super-imposed two slides and was fascinated by the outcome. He proceeded to purposely juxtapose nature close-ups, interiors and nudity (a major taboo in the Soviet era), with the intention of celebrating beauty or its absence. The results of his experimentations are suggestive, poetic, ridden with meaning – both abstract and figurative – but mostly, of a breathtaking beauty.

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Black and White; A Suprematist Composition of 1915 by Kazimir Malevich (2009) – Andrei Nakov – Steidl

The groundbreaking painting ‘Black and White; Suprematist Composition‘(1915) by Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) is the focus of this little wonder. Recent advances in conservation work mean that scholars are now able to understand this single piece in more detail. Articulated in the Suprematist ‘grammar’ of pure geometrical forms, the painting, along with others by Malevich like ‘White on White’ and ‘Black Square’, envisioned a new art, breaking with traditional form and realism. The book gives readers a peek into Malevich’s vision and conceptualism, placing it in the context of the fermenting political landscape and the wider international art scene of the time. A great synopsis of this abstract masterpiece of the Russian avant-garde, one which would go on to be an inspiration to so many movements in years to come, paving the way for Italian futurists and American minimalists in the 1950s.

Available from Amazon

Red star over Russia (2009) – David King – Tate

A mammoth of a book filled to the brim with posters, graphics and photographs detailing the course of events following the revolution from 1917 until the death of Stalin in 1953. This volatile period saw upheaval, civil unrest, war and the decimation of famine. The 1930s brought Stalin’s Great terror followed by the violent onslaught of the Nazi military machine. Scaling whimsical portraits of ordinary life and famous intellectuals to propaganda-pushing Stalin’s five-year plan, this is a dynamic look at the Soviet Union in its most changeable period. For a book with so many remarkable images, it is crammed full of historical insight. Definitely not just your average picture book.

Available from Amazon

Vania (2010) – Vania Zouravliov – Gestalten

Child prodigies never fail to spark interest, but in Vania Zouravliov’s case, it feels as though the body of work has managed to surpass the myth. The son of a painter and an art teacher, Vania dabbled around from an early age and counted international exhibitions and several television appearances by the time he turned thirteen. His remarkably detailed drawings are surreal and haunting portrayals of idealistic and ethereal beauty tinged with darkness. Morbid overtones of death, decay and decadence seep and overwhelm the dreamlike states, which resonate through much of his work. With influences ranging from his native Russian folklore and art to Japanese illustration and pop art, Zouravliov delivers an intriguing body of work in this monograph. Layered with dark motifs that are reminiscent of silent movies, “Vania” is thrilling, alluring and definitely disturbing.

Available from Gestalten Online Store

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To thank you for taking the time to answer these 12 questions, we’ll randomly pick two of you to win a bottle of champagne as well as a bottle of vodka.

© Yassin Serghini

Slaughter on a snowy morn by Colin Evans, Icon Books (2010)

Charlie Stielow is one unlucky man. The Berlin-born farmhand and his young family, following years of hardship (no job, no prospect, no money), finally catch a break when landowner Charles Phelps employs Stielow for one year on particularly generous terms. A couple of days after moving into the property’s tenants’ house, Phelps is brutally murdered, setting off a chain of events which would forever revolutionise the proceedings within a courtroom. Evans’ novel, which hops from fiction to forensic disaster tales, gives us a glimpse of the prejudiced and hurried manner in which a man is sent to his death, on a string of flimsy and constructed evidence. Set in the United States during the 1910s, the book can at times be heavy on detail, although the way in which Evans vividly depicts Stielow’s descent to hell gives the narrative considerable impetus.

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Mapping the invisible: EU roma gypsies by Lucy Orta, Black Dog Publishing (2010)

Gypsies have always been captured in fairytales and literature fabling them in the European consciousness as the mysterious pariahs of society. Eschewing the accepted normalcy of traditional concepts of property their appeal has laid mainly in our ignorance and misunderstanding of the Roma way of life. This book looks to realign these misconceptions and throw light on this diaspora’s plight through breathtaking and some-times disturbing visuals of displacement. Here’s an uplifting and eye opening read exposing the lives of an all-to-often marginalised people.

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Shoot the artist by Bjorn Tagemose, Ludion (2010)

“I am not Bjorn Tagemose the photographer, or Bjorn Tagemose the solo artist. I am a director, a translator of other people’s desires… a multimedia manipulator.” Such is the way ‘Shoot the Artist’, Tagemose’s book recounting many of the shoots he’s produced, begins, in classic self-deprecating form. Spawning the fashion, commercial, music and art worlds, ‘Shoot the Artist’ (which also happens to be the name of Tagemose’s collective of animators, technicians, light people, holograph experts and the likes) is a copious, behind-the-scenes look at the photographer’s prolific career as a masterful jack-of-all trades – which began with a first photograph for Walter Van Beirendonck (the now-cult ‘Finally Chest Hair’ image). A somewhat difficult book to navigate (it is actually made up of smaller albums each devoted to one of his jobs), but an enriching page-turner nonetheless.

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Michaël Borremans: paintings by Jeffrey D. Grove, Hatje Cantz (2009)

The first of its kind to include all of Michaël Borremans’ work, this volume provides a complete overview of the Belgian artist’s universe. Hailed as one of the finest contemporary painters in Europe, his compositions explore complicated psychological states while vexing logic. Displaced objects are depicted as though they were breathing subjects and the human body is replicated as a figure of unconsciousness. The most striking are his ghostly portraits, based on random photographs picked from magazines. Deprived of identity, they express only silence. Unsettling yet captivating.

Available from Amazon

Viewbook: photostory, Blurb publishing (2009)

Annually held, the Viewbook PhotoStory competition is a platform for photographers from all around the world to submit their work and gain exposure on an international level. A brilliantly vibrant and varied anthology of the winning portfolios, These span from the emotive documentary of stoneworkers in Jaflong, Bangladesh to the whimsical portraits of the very dapper members of Congo’s Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes. PhotoStory 2009 isn’t your average coffee table book but a series of incredibly powerful and thought provoking works.

Available here

No wave by Marc Masters, Black Dog Publishing (2007)

Ask anyone who was there; it didn’t get any rougher than the New York of the late seventies. It’s therefore no surprise that the wastelands of the Lower East-Side spawned a sound described by critics as musical sadomasochism, ferociously avant-garde, militantly anti-melodic, inaccessible and anti humanist, also known as No Wave. Complete with live photos, artwork of the era and first person accounts by its protagonists and witnesses, Marc Masters traces the whole history of this anti-movement and spells the key to understanding its essence in two simple letters: N.O.

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Words Renasha Khan

Emily Scream #1, 2008, Digigraphie

The book is a celebration of this exhibition and contains detailed essays giving a lucid insight into the cineaste’s creative vision – a vision extended beyond cinema, to animation, lithography, digital print, drawings, photography, installation and painting. What is clear from the book is that his allure and success as a filmmaker is rooted in a love and understanding of painting and fine arts.

The reproductions in Dark Splendor are comprehensive and remarkably captivating, engaging not only fans but also a wider audience too. The Distorted Nudes series (2004) displays Lynch’s obvious fascination with the macabre, something that is undoubtedly evident throughout his dramatic works such as his much lauded TV series Twin Peaks (1990). Such fluid diffusion of concepts across media can also be seen in the remarkably detailed pen and ink matchbook drawings. These depict surreal landscapes and dreamlike interiors inside matchbooks and are suffused with the same sense of foreboding and atmospherics, which are so characteristic of his cinematic offerings and are resonant throughout the prints in the monograph.

David Lynch: Dark Splendor is a fan’s dream in that it illustrates the sheer breadth of Lynch’s artistry and stands up to claims of his genius. One thing is for sure; Lynch’s place is secure as one of the most enigmatic and quixotically creative energies of the 20th century.

David Lynch, (1946-)

Untitled from the Industrial Motives series, undated, photographs

Untitled from the Distorted Nudes series, 2004, digital print

Buy here

David Lynch: Dark Splendour
Edited by Werner Spies, texts by Dietmar Dath, Stefanie Diekmann, Thomas W. Gaethgens, Andreas Platthaus, Peter-Klaus Schuster, Werner Spies, graphic design by KOMA AMOK
English 2010
352 pp., 346 ills.
Published by Hatje Cantz, Berlin

All books available from Amazon:

Studio Culture (2009) by Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy – Unit Editons

Antwerp Street Style (2009) by Jens Mollenvanger – Ludion

Bibliographic (2009) by Jason Godfrey – Laurence King

Oil (2009) by Edward Burtynsky – Steidl/Corcoran

American Power (2009) by Mitch Epstein – Steidl

Born in the Streets (2009) – Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain

This Book is Elektronic (2009) – Ludion

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art Direction Melisande McBurnie

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art Direction Melisande McBurnie

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art Direction Melisande McBurnie

“Arnaud’s mad for books, essentially photography books: well, believe it or not there’s a whole neighbourhood dedicated to his passion in Tokyo: Jimbocho. Although the name’s sounds exotic, this is a place for people who take their hobby seriously. Streets of tightly packed bookstores that spill their content onto the pavement.

All the shops are on the same side of the street, constantly bathed in shadow. You see, the sun’s harmful rays could alter the beauty of their books (told you they took it seriously). You’ll find shelves packed with books along walls into alleys and ‘cul-de-sacs’, it’s like a living entity of paper veins and arteries pumping ink and spreading for miles on end.

I suspect the owners have interconnecting galleries or tunnels from the Second World War as each shop gives exactly the same price for the same book… No competition here then? Meanwhile, Arnaud’s running up and down the street like a 4-year old on a sugar high, trying to decipher the symbols on his little piece of paper with the ultimate bookstore’s address on it. I tag along, smoking cigarettes, desperately looking for the rare and endangered street ashtray.

Didn’t I tell you? You’re not allowed to smoke on the streets of Japan, except in designated areas and you’ll need at least a pigeon’s magnetic-field-recognition-system to find them. No bins either, how in Buddha’s name do they keep their streets so clean? These guys are the Swiss of Asia…”

The night’s invitees read like a guest list at a design geek’s surprise birthday bash, with big name agencies such as Spin, Biblioteque, APFEL and Tomato all present, as well as Adrian Shaugnessy (Studio Culture’s author and former agency director at Intro), Patrick Burgoyne (editor of Creative Review), Tony Hung (responsible for shaping Kylie Minogue‘s graphic identity) and, a personal favourite, Neville Brody (celebrated, amongst others, for his work with the now defunct The Face and for designing the record sleeves of Depeche Mode).

Big shout out to Frédéric at Coast (the only Belgium agency included in the book) for his account of the night’s happenings (white wine galore and a curry at Busaba Thai, although I personally would have opted for their Pad Kwetio), for sending through the pictures and for hauling a copy of the book (soon to be reviewed) back from his London trip for us.

And of course, we wish nothing but the best to Unit Editions…

Coast's Frederic Vanhorenbeke and Studio Culture author Adrian Shaugnessy