Rest in Peace Milton Babbitt

Lagniappe by Milton Babbitt (1985). Performed by Robert Taub.

Books on Books #12: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 60 Fotos.

Books on Books #12: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 60 Fotos. Essays by David Evans, Franz Roh, Jeffrey Ladd. Errata Editions, 2011. 92pp., 50 duotone illustrations, 9,5x7".

The Errata Editions Books on Books Series is an "on-going publishing project dedicated to making rare and out-of-print photography books accessible to students and photobook enthusiasts. These are not reprints or facsimiles but complete studies of those originals.

Each in this series presents the entire content, page for page, of an original master bookwork which, up until now, has been too rare or prohibitively expensive for most to experience. Through a mix of classic and contemporary titles, this series spans the breadth of photographic practice as it has appeared on the printed page and allows further study into the creation and meanings of these great works of art.

Each in the Books on Books series contains; illustrations of every page in the original photobook being featured; a new essay by established writers on photography composed specially for this series; production notes about the creation of the original edition; biography and bibliography information about each artist."


Books on Books #12 is dedicated to the book 'Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: 60 Foto'.

This book "sets forth the framework and ideas behind the 'New Vision' of modern photography from the legendary Bauhaus teacher and key figure in early experimental photographic practice.

Published in 1930 as the first book in the planned Fototek series on 'New Photography,' 60 Fotos evoked a complex and multi-layered dialogue using some of Moholy-Nagy's finest examples of 'straight' photographs, negative prints, photograms, and photomontage.

Books on Books #12 reproduces every page spread from this classic treatise on photography along with a contemporary essay from the noted photo-historian David Evans."


First quote from here, second quote from here.

Archaeology in Reverse.

Archaeology in Reverse. Photographs by Stephen Gill. Nobody, London, 2007. Unpaged, 104 colour illustrations, 8½x8½". Images from photo-eye.

I really like the work of Stephen Gill. For more books featuring his work go here, here, here, here or here for example.


Book description:

"Continuing to photograph where his award-winning book 'Hackney Wick' left off, Stephen Gill has made 'Archaeology in Reverse' in his cherished area in East London.

Still making pictures with the camera he bought at Hackney Wick market for 50p, this time he focuses on things that do not yet exist.

This magnificently produced book features traces and clues of things to come in a poetic, sometimes eerie and quiet photographic study of a place in a state of limbo prior to the rapid transformation that this area faces during the build-up to the Olympics in 2012."


A special edition of 'Archaeology in Reverse' is available.

It's limited to an edition of 100 copies and is signed and numbered by Stephen Gill and Iain Sinclair. It includes a c-type print and comes in a salamander case.

Zebrato.

Zebrato. Photographs by Michael Levin. Foreword by Barry Dumka. Dewi Lewis, Stockport, 2008. 96 pp., 46 duotone illustrations, 11¾x11¾".

I often find Michael Levin's work in a way obvious in its beauty. With this book however, especially with the imagery above, I must say the shapes - found or carved out with the help of the landscape - really spoke to me.


Book description:

"Michael Levin’s award-winning and extraordinarily beautiful photographs have a very painterly quality. In a recent feature profile, the American fine art magazine Focus declared 'Michael Levin’s captivating images are soulful and evocative; he is truly one of the rising stars in photography.'

Using long exposures Levin reduces the landscape to elemental shapes. Each image has a simplicity and purity capturing the essence of the landscape.

Many of his photographs feature water and clouds, and show what has been described as ‘the smooth skin of light’, yet it is the architectural intrusions into these clean spaces that most engage him. Wooden posts, concrete barriers, weathered rocks, dilapidated jetties, even the elegant shape of French topiaries introduce elements which seem to haunt the landscape and introduce a human presence."

Bruit De Fond - Background Noise.

Bruit De Fond. Background Noise. Curated by Aurelien Arbet, Jeremie Egry and Nicolas Poillot. JSBJ, 2010. 160 pp., colour illustrations throughout, 8¼x10¾".

A beautiful book, and a beautiful thought-process.

Book description:

"The border between different artistic media is meant to disappear to reveal interstices loaded with creativity. This publication is one of them.

A collection of images and photographs conceptualized and elaborated around what links sonic elements to visual ones.

This publication exhibits and questions different levels of interpretation between these two media.

How can one photograph noise? Silence?
Can we hear with our eyes and see with our ears?
Is noise inevitably associated to movement and silence to inactivity?
Why is noise a problem?

In this publication we aim to distance ourselves from the basic relationship existing between music and photography, avoiding pictures of gigs, bands or instruments.

We wish to present pictures that come out of the direct collaboration between noise and photography, taken instinctively and randomly. Pictures of places, moments or people where the notion of noise is perceptible instantly.

We also wish to present works from people that deal with this theme in a conscious and conceptual way.

This book deals with the notions of high and low definition of an image and encourages people to think about contemporary estheticism through different techniques: film or digital cameras, pictures that were found, screenshots or video samples…

Noise in photography can also be revealed by using certain devices to distort digital files or negatives.

The image produced then shows new properties - grain as an emotional variation -

These variations modify space and carry an immaterial energy named wave and revealed by photography.

In that sense, 'Bruit de fond' (Background noise) becomes a collection of more or less stronger disturbances.

'Bruit de fond' questions our senses and our perception. This book questions the notion of photography by proposing to educate one to listening to pictures and looking at noise."

Touch and Go. The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83.

Touch and Go. The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83. By Tesco Vee & Dave Stimson. Bazillion Points, 2010. 576 pp., illustrated throughout, 11x8½".

Book description:

"Touch and Go fanzine was the brainchild of Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson and was launched in Lansing, Michigan, in 1979. Major fanatics of the new punk happenings in the late ’70s, TV and DS set out to chronicle, lambaste, ridicule, and heap praise on all they arbitrarily loved or hated in the music communities in the US and abroad.

In laughably minuscule press runs by today’s standards, T & G was made by guys within the Midwest scene strictly for the edification of scenesters and pals in other cities like DC, Philly, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, et al. Inspired by magazines such as Slash and Search and Destroy and writers like Claude Bessy and Chris Desjardines, TV and DS pumped out seventeen naughty, irreverent issues together, and TV did another five solo.

Magazines like Forced Exposure and Your Flesh, among others, soon fired up Xerox machines themselves, and the rest is history.

So is the legendary independent record label launched from this zine, and so are the bands covered inside: Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Misfits, Negative Approach, the Fix, the Avengers, the Necros, Discharge, Iron Cross, Youth Brigade, Faith, Die Kreuzen, Crucifix, Poison Idea - and all the other punks worth their weight in glorious black and white."

Fragments, volume 1.

Fragments. Volume 1. Photographs by John Steck Jr., with poetry by Katherine Murphy. The Make Book Blog, 2010. 12 pp., 10 illustrations, 5x5". Limited edition of 35 copies. Images from here.

'Fragemnts, volume 1' features work by John Steck Jr. and is handmade and printed on digital inkjet paper by the artist.

The book is in an accordion style format and its' edition is limited to 35 copies, which are all signed and numbered.


'Fragments' is a series of accordion style books that will be published every two months. "Future Volumes will consist of other emerging artist and will be made in collaboration with them.

Volume One was made in conjunction with an exhibition of my work at The Hallway Gallery for the month of June. It is printed in an edition of 35, each one signed and numbered. It also features poetry by Katherine Murphy."

- source / read further here.

In the Near Distance.

In the Near Distance. Photography Greg Girard. Kominek Books, 2010. 84 pp., illustrated thoughout, 8x11". Images from photo-eye.

Book description:

"In the Near Distance 1973-86 is the document of Greg Girards early wanderings, the adolescent search for prospects and aims: nocturnal street sceneries, portraits of 'sailors and friends', images of creatures of the night and hotel rooms.

In addition to black-and-white-materials Girard mainly used color slides during those years - and thus adds a new and important body of work to the color photography of the seventies. Consciously Girard uses the light of neon lamps and electric bulbs, explores the very particular, slightly shifted color temperatures of the slides and approaches a creative stylistic device that he brings to perfection in his work 'Phantom Shanghai', published in 2007.

Inspired by the aesthetics of seventies movies, the literature of Peter Handke and by Asian culture, Girard very early finds an individual imagery, in which he strikingly captures his visual impressions, his emotions, as well as the atmosphere of the different places and stations of his journeys."

Fettered by film.

Fettered by film. By dettmer otto. Otto books, 2008. 21pp., hand stenciled on lining paper, stapled, 17x25cm.

I've previously featured the excellent book 'The Octopus would like to put a stop to us' by Otto and I couldn't resist featuring 'Fettered by film' even though there sadly are no more copies available.

'Fettered by film' is "adapted from a film written by Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1918". To view all pages of 'Fettered by film' go here, and for more books and illustration work by Otto go here.


Otto says of his book art:

"I'd like to think that in my books every page is a cover. There are no 'dead' areas, I try to fill the book inch by inch with the most modern, exciting and challenging graphics. My books are fresh and lively, but also engaging and critical: there are no compromises. I am driven by a passion for the printed image on paper, and I take a pride in what I do.

My books are illustration based, text plays a supportive role. Most are screen printed in small editions. Quality of print and paper is paramount. I don't put too much into the binding as I try to keep the costs and prices low.

The visual narratives deal with mythologies in contemporary culture, such as consumerism, work-ethic, self-destruction."

Sketches. Polaroids of Africa (2002-2010).

Sketches. Polaroids of Africa (2002-2010). Photographs by Viviane Sassen. Kominek Gallery, 2010. 36 pp., colour illustrations throughout, 6¼x8". Images from photo-eye.

The book 'Sketches. Polaroids of Africa (2002-2010)' is made up of polaroids taken in Africa between 2002 and 2010.

Photographer Viviane Sassens "normally using the polaroids as sketches and tryouts before taking the final picture" [...] but in this book it seems like "the polaroids start to live their own life, capturing the raw energy of a spontaneously staged street scene, building together a new photobook that becomes a piece of its own".

The book is designed by Dutch designer Sybren Kuiper and reproduces piles of polaroids on white pages. The book is stitched together with black thread and the cover is cardboard, which has been stamped.


To view every page of the book have a look at this video.


Both quotes from here.

Oaxaca.

Oaxaca. Photography by Juan Rulfo. RM, 2010. 80 pp., 50 tritone illustrations, 5½x8½".

Book description:

"Oaxaca has exercised a keen fascination on Mexican photographer and writer Juan Rulfo, since he first visited the state in the 1940s.

In addition to the writings he undertook there, Rulfo also made some 350 photographs, placing an emphasis on architecture, landscape and the native population.

These have been edited down to 50 photos for this beautifully designed homage."


'Oaxaca' was selected as one of photo-eye's Best Books of 2010.


Limited edition:

This special edition of 'Oaxaca' is limited to 100 copies in 4 series (25 photos / series) and includes an original 3.5 x 3.5 silver gelatin print certified and numbered by Fundacion Juan Rulfo. It comes encased in a handmade slipcase box.

Assembled Works.

Assembled Works. Photographs by Dave Jordano. Paper Mirror Press, Chicago, 2004. 55 pp., numerous black-and-white illustrations, 12x9".

I love this book by fine art and documentary photographer Dave Jordano. He says:

"No two bridges are exactly alike. Their elegance, purity of efficiency, strength and beauty are engineering marvels.

For nearly 100 years now, their inventivness and ingenuity are a lasting tribute to the waining days of the industrial revolution and the final key to the western expansion of America."

White Sands.

White Sands. Photographs by Brett Weston. Introduction by Nancy Newhall. Afterword by Roger Aikin. Lodima Press / Michael A. Smith, Ottsville, 2008. 54 pp., 16 black &white illustrations., 12½x12½".

Book description:

"The original White Sands portfolio, produced in 1949, contained twelve photographs and was printed in an edition of fifty.

In 1975 Weston printed a second edition of the portfolio in an edition of seventeen.
It included eight of the original ten photographs made in the 1940s (negatives from two of the photographs in the original portfolio were damaged and unprintable), two others from the 1940s that had not been included in the first portfolio (Plates 11 and 12), and two from 1975 (Plates 13 and 14), for a total of twelve prints.


'White Sands' contains the original ten photographs plus the four new pictures from Weston's 1975 edition.

The original 1949 title page and the introduction by Nancy Newhall are reproduced in facsimile. Included is an afterword by art historian Roger Aikin."

a photo a day - month twelve

a photo a day (set). Month twelve (27 Nov-31 Dec).

I've now come to the end of my photo project/diary 'a photo a day' (month twelve is above, you can see the first month here, the second month here, the third month here, the fourth month here, the fifth month here, the sixth month here, the seventh month here, the eight month here, the ninth month here, the tenth month here and the eleventh month here).

'a photo a day' is an incidental look at what I see out the window or on my way to places everyday. Even if I live in a city environment most of the time I'm primarily focusing on landscape or the sky, as I find the intense impact nature has on us even in a city-setting very interesting indeed (spending time mainly in Stockholm with its' clearly defined seasons and high impact of the weather, this is even more poignant, and thus interesting to document).

It has hopefully been an interesting capture of the seasons changing, random captures of immediate or unexpected loveliness, as well as some beautiful photographs.


You can see the result above, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here or view the full set here (individual images by clicking here or here).

Working Collages.

Working Collages. Photographs by Karl Blossfeldt. Text by Ann and Jurgen Wilde, and Ulrike Meyer Stump. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001. 144 pp., 11 black-and-white and 61 colour illustrations, 12x10". Images from photo-eye.

Book description:

"Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) achieved overnight fame in the late 1920s with the first publication of his photographs of plants. Those photographs, which revealed the inner structures of the organic forms, immediately made him a pioneer of New Objectivity - an innovative movement in art and photography of the 1920s and 1930s.

Blossfeldt, however, was neither a trained photographer nor a botanist. He was a sculptor and art professor who did his photographic work to generate teaching material for his students.


The publication of this book is the result of an extraordinary event - the 1997 discovery in Blossfeldt's estate of sixty-one previously unknown collages, in virtually mint condition, of photographic contact prints arranged on large cardboard sheets. Blossfeldt apparently used these to study the relation and similarity of the photographs and to compare them graphically and aesthetically. On some, Blossfeldt had made marks or handwritten notations. Others show lines for cropping.

The collages, published here for the first time, unveil a hidden treasure of modern photography and cast fresh light on the systematic approach Blossfeldt used in his photographic studies. All collages are reproduced in four colors.

Introducing the book is an essay by Swiss art historian Ulrike Meyer-Stump, a contributing curator to the exhibitions at the Kunsthaus in Zurich."

New and Used.

New and Used. Photographs by Marc Joseph. Edited by Damon Krukowski. Interview with Aaron Rose. Numerous contributing writers. Steidl, Gottingen, 2006. 150 pp., 60 colour illustrations, 8¾x11".

American artist and photographer Marc Joseph's "first exposure to art, writing and music came through the eccentric smaller book and record shops of downtown Cleveland.

Most Saturday afternoons were spent combing through the stacks in anticipation of a major future purchase - like his first, London Calling by the Clash - or studying certain talismanic book covers like George Orwell’s Animal Farm or Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.

This was the beginning of Joseph’s permanent fascination with books and records - both as public artworks and as formative private experiences."


The book 'New and Used' is "a collection of richly detailed color photographs of hardcovers, paperbacks, LPs, CDs and cassettes, either shelved, piled, boxed and stacked in their increasingly endangered natural environments - independent book and record shops - or individually silhouetted like artifacts pinned into shadow-boxes.

Together with editor Damon Krukowski, the artist has assembled a collection of short fiction, prose, poems and personal essays by writers and musicians including Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, novelists Dennis Cooper and Jonathan Lethem, critic and curator Bob Nickas, poet Eileen Myles and others, all of whom respond to the New and Used of their own experience. Other contributing writers include Stephen Elliott, Shelley Jackson, Jeremy Sigler, Ian Svenonious and Nick Tosches."


Both quotes from here.

Soul and Soul 1969-1999.

Soul and Soul 1969-1999. Photography by Kiyoshi Suzuki. Noorderlicht, Groningen, 2008. 76 pp., numerous colour and black & white illustrations., 9½x11½".

Book description:

"Suzuki, together with fellow photographers Takuma Nakahira and Daido Moriyama cleared the way in Japan for an emotionally involved and personal form of photography.

However Suzuki had also a passion for the medium of the book and its special qualities.

This quality production, made with love and attention, brings together the two mediums in a worthy tribute to the artist that surveys both his approach to photography and the various book dummies that he designed."


Read more about this book here and here.