Alexey Brodovitch’s Ballet is a legend – one of the most influential and coveted works in the history of the photobook, but so rare that many connoisseurs have never seen a copy of the original edition, much less held it in their own hands. It has been conjured in the imagination and hinted at through documentation, but it remains more of a mystery than a reality for many.\n\nBrodovitch’s aim was to capture dance in the spontaneous, living present. Free of all artistic preconceptions and working with a sense of existential imperative, he immersed himself over a span of five years in the final performances of the Ballets Russes on tour in America. These included productions of Bronislava Nijinska’s “Les Cents Baisers” and “Les Noces;” George Balanchine’s “La Concurrence” and “Cotillon;” and Leonide Massine’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” “Le Tricorne,” “La Boutique Fantasque,” “Septième Symphonie,” and “Choreartium;” as well as “Le Lac des Cygnes” (after Petipa) and “Les Sylphides” (after Fokine). By the time the book was published in 1945, the arc of the revolutionary dance tradition ignited by Sergei Diaghilev and carried on by his artistic heirs had reached its end.\n\nIn Ballet, Brodovitch engaged the image and the book form in ways that continue to fascinate. Printing, however, played an equally decisive role in his experiment. He intensified the grain of his photographic film with an experimental gravure printing method that was risky and unpredictable. The improvised process required the printer to be totally engaged in the moment of creation – analogous to a dancer in performance. His every decision and challenge would be captured on the pages. The inking and scraping mechanisms of the rotogravure press were used to mark the action of dance aggressively across the broad spreads of the book, producing images that often resemble drawings more than photographs. Stray smudges, streaks, and blotches of ink were accepted, and even embraced. Plates wore down, and ink levels fluctuated to the extreme. The exact marks left on the pages – which might be considered flaws in a different production context – were not as important as the fact that they were present and visible as honest and spontaneous marks of the moment of creation.\n\nOn the eve of the 80th anniversary of the publication of Ballet, Little Steidl’s reissue brings Brodovitch’s masterpiece back to life in all its material intensity with an experimental five-tone printing method developed specially for the project. The bespoke technique, which pushes the technical limits of offset-lithography to extremes, was developed and carried out by Nina Holland with the intention of reanimating not only the visual intensity of the 1945 edition, but also the risk and spontaneity of Brodovitch’s experiment. In a separate booklet accompanying the reissue, Holland and co-editor Joshua Chuang deliver a previously unknown story about the 1945 production – drawn from their forensic study of the original edition – that suggests Brodovitch’s artistic achievement should be viewed not just as one of the highlights, but as a singularly radical work in the history of the photographic book and printing.\n\nBallet\n104 Photographs by Alexey Brodovitch; text by Edwin Denby\nReissue of the 1945 edition\n\nAlexey Brodovitch’s Ballet was first published in 1945 in an edition of 500 by J. J. Augustin in New York. The process of reconstructing the work is discussed in detail by the editors in the accompanying text booklet.\n\nBook: hardcover (Steifbroschur) with a stitched book block, exposed coverboards, and a buckram-covered spine; French-wrap dust jacket; 28.3 x 21.6 x 2 cm; 144 pages; 104 five-tone images; text in English.\n\nHand-stitched text booklet: 28 x 21.5 cm; 16 pages; text by the editors in English.\nPortfolio box: 29.5 x 22.6 x 2.6 cm.\nTotal weight: 1.1 kg / 2.4 lbs.\n\nEditors: Nina Holland and Joshua Chuang\nDesign: Alexey Brodovitch (1945), adapted by Nina Holland (2024)\nHeidelberg drum scans: Nina Holland / Little Steidl\nFive-tone separations: Nina Holland / Little Steidl\nOffset-lithographic printing: Nina Holland / Little Steidl\nBinding: Sandra Roth / Köhler & Roth Buchbinderei, Rodgau\n\nPublisher: Little Steidl\nNovember 2024\nISBN 978-3-944630-07-6\nPrinted in Germany by Little Steidl\n\nAbout the imaging and separations\nThis reissue was made using two disassembled copies of the original gravure edition. The gravure prints were scanned on a Heidelberg drum scanner so as to maintain their unique grain structure – a combination of pronounced film grain, the gravure medium, and an experimental gravure printing method. This grain structure was carefully maintained and articulated in the five-tone separations developed for the offset-lithographic reissue.\n\nAbout the printing\nThe reissue of Ballet was printed by Nina Holland on Little Steidl’s vintage 1993 Roland 200 offset-lithographic press, which has many characteristics in common with the rotogravure press on which the 1945 edition was printed. Both have a maximum print format of approximately 52 x 74 cm, which allowed for an identical imposition of the press sheets in the original and reissue. Moreover, both presses are fully mechanical and controlled solely by the printer. Like its rotogravure predecessor, the Roland 200 has no control board, computer system, or automation, and the printing process unfolds as an intensive collaboration between human and machine. Although each press was considered technologically old-fashioned by the time it was used respectively for the production of the original edition and the reissue, this obsolescence made each suitable for a kind of artistic experimentation that would have been impossible on a more modern machine.\n\nFor the reissue, Holland developed a unique five-tone, wet-on-dry printing method to address the intense blacks of the original gravure medium. Deviating from prevailing tritone/quadtone methods, Holland drew from the painting techniques of Chuck Close to structure a wide array of multi-dimensional blacks that are built primarily of carefully-layered greys. Two different blacks were part of the ink set, but were used mainly to structure the reflection/absorption of light.\n\nThe accumulated density of the ink layers is extreme and had to be achieved incrementally: each ink was applied individually in one or two passes through the press, then allowed to dry for several days before the next layer was applied. From the third application of ink, Holland rolled and fanned out the sheets in small batches by hand to promote flexibility and prevent them from permanently bonding together. Each sheet of the reissue ran through the press fourteen individual times, and the entire edition required 252 individual runs through the press with a total work time of nine months. The resulting textural detail and tonal diversity cannot be achieved through standard printing methods.\n\nAbout the binding\nThe reissue follows the design and construction of Brodovitch’s original 1945 edition: a Steifbroschur with a stitched book block of nine sixteen-page signatures; endpapers; grey buckram-wrapped spine; and raw coverboards with a two-millimeter overhang. The book is outfitted with a blue/grey French-wrap dust jacket printed in white. The reissue was bound by master bookbinder Sandra Roth at Köhler & Roth Buchbinderei in Rodgau using the same hybrid hand and machine production that would have been typical of a publisher’s bookbindery in 1945. Roth formed the spines of the books in the traditional manner by hand with two applications of Planatol BB dispersion adhesive, a superior technique than cannot be carried out in today’s industrial in-line binderies.\n\nAbout the materials\nThe uncoated book paper is Jupp Crääm, produced for Römerturm Feinstpapier. The cylinder-moldmade endpaper is Hahnemühle Pro Arte Ingres. The dustcover paper is f.color, produced by Gmund Papierfabrik for Schabert. All three papers are wood- and acid-free and meet the permanency standards of ISO/DIN 9706. KöhlerBook pH 7.5–9.5 and KöhlerBox pH 7.5–9.5 were used respectively for the coverboards and the portfolio box; both were made on a cylinder-mold paper machine at Köhler Pappen in Gengenbach and are alkaline-buffered to enhance permanence.

Ballet

This luxurious special edition celebrates Richard Billingham’s revelatory new edition of Ray’s a Laugh, one of the most significant photobooks in the history of the form. It presents a signed first MACK edition of the book, housed in an embossed linen slipcase completed by a tipped-in portrait of Ray, alongside a signed and numbered hand-made print in a card sleeve.\n\nFirst published in 1996 to enormous acclaim, Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh is one of the most significant photobooks of the turn of the twentieth century, as well as a cornerstone work of the Young British Artists generation. Formed of starkly intimate images of Billingham’s often chaotic parental home under the heavy effects of alcoholism and poverty, the book was produced in the 1990s with editors Michael Collins and Julian Germain. This new edition restores Billingham’s original vision for his deeply personal work for the first time. Including numerous unseen images and a distinct approach to sequencing inflected by Billingham’s training as a painter: it constitutes a ‘director’s cut’ and reintroduces a vital and consistently challenging work for a new era.\n\nThe publication of this new edition is accompanied by Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader, edited by Liz Jobey, which traces the book’s compelling history from Billingham’s ‘discovery’ at Sunderland University, through his Turner Prize nomination, to the present reworked edition.\n\nEdition of 250 copies\nEmbossed linen hardcover and a signed and numbered hand-made print, housed in a slipcase with a tipped-in image\nPrint size: 8 x 10” / 20.3 x 25.4cm

Ray's a Laugh (Special)

Signed by the Photographer, This signed edition includes a slip signed by the artist and glued into the inside back cover.\n\nFirst published in 1996 to enormous acclaim, Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh is one of the most significant photobooks of the turn of the twentieth century, as well as a cornerstone work of the Young British Artists generation. Formed of starkly intimate images of Billingham’s often chaotic parental home under the heavy effects of alcoholism and poverty, the book was produced in the 1990s with editors Michael Collins and Julian Germain. This new edition restores Billingham’s original vision for his deeply personal work for the first time. Including numerous unseen images and a distinct approach to sequencing inflected by Billingham’s training as a painter: it constitutes a ‘director’s cut’ and reintroduces a vital and consistently challenging work for a new era.\n\nThe publication of this new edition is accompanied by Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader, edited by Liz Jobey, which traces the book’s compelling history from Billingham’s ‘discovery’ at Sunderland University, through his Turner Prize nomination, to the present reworked edition. \n\nEmbossed linen hardcover\n23.4 x 31cm, 320 pages\n\nISBN 978-1-915743-32-9

Ray's a Laugh

‘In the mid-1930s, Walter Benjamin posed the question of the relation of art to the dominant representational technology of his time: photography and film. To return to the artwork essay today in the spirit in which it was written is to ask the same question in respect of the hegemonic representational technology of our own time: the digital. Benjamin found that the medium of photography and film had dissolved the auratic quality of art. Digital technology has dissolved the very category of ‘medium’ itself.’ \n\nWalter Benjamin’s essay of cultural criticism ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ has become a ‘classic’ text, one which resonated through the twentieth century and beyond. In this succinct and pointed new essay, the artist and writer Victor Burgin rereads Benjamin’s 1935 text, to elaborate a new argument contending that the camera today is profoundly imbricated in that which is not visible.\n\nDISCOURSE is a series of small books in which a theorist, artist, or writer engages in a dialogue with a theme, an artwork, an idea, or another individual across an extended text. Explore the full series here.\n\n\n\nPaperback with flap\n12.5 x 19.5 cm, 40 pages\n\nISBN 978-1-913620-91-2

Returning to Benjamin

Signed by the Photographer\n\n“Venice” is a new project Brunelli decided to start in response to the fragility of the city after the exceptional November 2019 "Acqua Alta". In January 2020, I decided to embark on a new project on the city of Venice as I have always been fascinated by its uniqueness, its fragility and vulnerability. In 2021, I managed to spend a few months there to complete the project, photographing this city built on more than 100 islands, no streets or cars just bridges, canals and water. I hope with this project to represent its timeless beauty and elegance. \nIn my projects, I try to give new life to what we have daily in front of our eyes.  When I photographed London, the city where I live, I tried to tell a story of a timeless and dreamlike city through the details of everyday life and I did the same “The Animals” and now with “New York”. I like to tell the mysteries surrounding everyday things.I shoot with a Miranda from the 60s (once it belonged to my father) and I have always used black and white as a form of expression.I am a fan of silver gelatin printing and find the black and white elegant, direct and in line with the type of emotions I want to convey"\n\nTwo and a half years later he has completed the project with a self-published book, published under the name of TantoPress.\n\nHardcover on leather \n22.5x22.5cm, 64 pages\nISBN 978-1-3999-2387-3

Venice

Signed by the photographer The signed edition includes a slip signed by the artist and bound into the inside back cover.\n\nFrom 1988 to 1991 Dawoud Bey made a series of portraits of African Americans in the streets of various American cities. Using a large format tripod mounted camera and a unique positive/negative Polaroid film that created both an instant print and a reusable negative, he asked a cross section of the populations of these communities to pose for him, creating a space of self presentation and performance in the streets of the urban environment. As part of every encounter, Bey gave each person a small black-and-white Polaroid print for themselves as a way of reciprocating and returning something to the people who had allowed him to make their portrait. Defying racial stereotypes, the resulting portraits reveal the Black subjects in all of their psychologically rich complexity, presenting themselves openly and intimately to the camera, the viewer, and the world.\n\nIncludes an essay by Greg Tate.\n\n“I think of Bey’s work as a nod to the nod—a gesture of grace and familiarity, made from a respectful distance. His subjects know it when they see it.” – The New Yorker\n\n“In the seemingly simple gesture of photographing Black subjects in everyday life, [Bey] helped to introduce Blackness in the context of fine art long before it was trendy, or even accepted.” – The New York Times\n\n"Dawoud Bey has critically reimagined photography’s social and political potential... through his collaborative portraits of under- and misrepresented communities.” – Artforum\n\n“These portraits attest to the power of ‘the Black gaze’ – how Blackfolk’s eye-to-eye looking-back game can meet any righteous or even reckless eyeballing judgment the world might bring with an equal and opposing optical Super-Kryptonian heat-visioned (and haute-visioned) force“ – Greg Tate, in Street Portraits\n\nEmbossed hardback with two tip-ins\n24 x 28.5cm, 120 pages\n\nISBN 978-1-913620-10-3

Street Portraits

In 1986, the American artist Judith Black was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship with the intention of documenting a cross-country road trip with her four children. Unlike Robert Frank’s iconic Guggenheim-funded road trip 30 years earlier, Black’s mission was much more intimate. Rather than documenting America, her intention was to photograph her children, friends, and family as she traversed the country. Her itinerary included stops in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and various sights along the way.\n\nDuring the trip, Black visited her aunt at the Michigan cabin, where as a child Black and her family went each August to avoid the brutal summer heat of her hometown Springfield, Illinois. Ironically, it was there at the age of seven that Black purchased her first Brownie camera, while staying with her grandmother. \n\nAfter returning to Massachusetts, Black continued photographing family and friends during vacations, recording various celebrations, birthdays, reunions, and births.\n\n“Sweet memories and histories embedded in each photograph.” - Judith Black \n\nISBN — 978-1-913288-28-0\n\nPages — 128\n\nCover — Hard back / 3/4 bound / tip on \n\nSize — 250x250mm

Vacation

Because each book is hand produced it nmay contain some minor imperfections in the printing or binding.\n\nL’Atelier RisoGraphique n°7 : Soft-Binding – 210 x 297 mm – 36 pages\nLimited Edition of 200 copies\nBook Designer : Thibault Geffroy

Kolokol

Each edition limited to just 200 editions      \nPrinted on uncoated paper using monochromatic cold inkjet.\n\n“Crime City 808”\na.k.a 808,\nis a pungent, brutal homage to “they”.\n“they” refers to all the dystopian cities, books, novels, games, movies & universes\nthat would define my future self, and this since my early teenager years.\n\nA childhood lost in thoughts, imprinted with the blast of different cultures, every single night, i was dreaming with open eyes.\n\nWithout knowing it, they slowly forged what’s to become my grown-up tastes,\nthey early shaped my visual spectrum, frames after frames, story after story,\nthey unconsciously developed my deep interest for architecture, for drawing, for dreaming.\nfinally, after years of imaginary escapes, after accumulating so much virtual visual data, they pushed me to see the world.\n“808”\nis a non-hidden love-wink to Kawajiri’s early masterpiece OEDOCITY 808,\nMainly shot without any sun, the book is filled with nightly City-scapes, lonely wanderers and strange beasts around dark corners.\n\nBecause each book is hand produced it nmay contain some minor imperfections in the printing or binding.\n\n808 by Christopher de Bethune\nL’Atelier RisoGraphique n°7 : Soft-Binding – 210 x 297 mm – 36 pages\nLimited Edition of 200 copies\nBook Designer : Thibault Geffroy

Out of Print  \nEach edition limited to just 200 editions      \nPrinted on uncoated paper using monochromatic cold inkjet. \n\nShooting in Hamburg, Giacomo Brunelli uses his cinematic film nior style to the full. Dark and moody the images capture Brunneli's random encounters with peole animals and the architecture.      Printed on uncoated paper using monochromatic cold inkjet.      "Using his very cinematic film-noir style of still photography, Giacomo Brunelli roamed the streets of the city of Hamburg, Germany, capturing a moody interpretation of its architecture, people and animals randomly encountered on the streets. By the very nature of its style, and the skillful editing and sequencing of the photographs, it seems we are witnessing scenes from a sinister story without context or words. The viewer is forced to make sense of this series, and becomes an unwitting collaborator in unraveling the mystery of the story." ? Jim Casper, Lensculture      out of print.      \n\nBecause each book is hand produced it nmay contain some minor imperfections in the printing or binding.\n\nFirst éditions 2021   210mm x 297mm   36 pages + cover, print in Risography   This first edition, part of L?Atelier Risographique,as number 1, limited to 200 copies,   ISBN 979-10-91406-99-4

Hamburg

Signed by the photographer,      Limited to 500 copies.  Out of Print      Beautifully printed with varnish inks the images sit upon a solid black page and have the appearance of actual photographs tipped into the book.  If you are a fan of Brunelli's cinematic style, this book will not disappoint.       "Giacomo Brunelli stalks the streets of New York with his old film camera, often for ten hours a day, looking for characters and details that are adrift in time.      His work has an air of nostalgia to it, and a film noir sensibility. The images are dark, shadowy, moody and a bit menacing ? as if we?re looking through the eyes of a night detective, a voyeur or a stalker.      They provoke an unspoken narrative, offering up clues to an unknown mystery.      True to his love of old things and old ways, Brunelli shoots with a 1962 Miranda camera and prints in his darkroom."      - Jim Casper, for Lens Culture      Edition of 500   Hardcover on leather   16,5x24cm   64 pages   ISBN 978-88-94895-31-5

New York

Limited edition of 500 numbered copies each with a small signed print   Leon Borensztein?s powerful little book Tata (Polish for ?Pappa?) pays homage to his father, ?Citizen M. Borensztein?. Born in the Polish city of Mi?sk Mazowiecki in 1912, M. Borensztein received his first military award in 1947. It was a Grunwald Badge, presented to him from the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army, for armed struggle against the Germans. He soon after received his second medal, for ?Victory and Freedom?.  The pages of Tata turn to document the many other medals he received through the 1960s. As the list of commendations grows, so the accompanying photographs of the badges begin to feel heavier and almost claustrophobic. That is, until the final spread reveals a white shirt with a single medal. It was presented by The Ministry of Defense of the State of Israel to Mr. M. Borensztein in 1974, for volunteering in the Yom Kippur War.    Leon Borensztein?s photographs have been widely published and exhibited in the United States and abroad, and are included in the permanent collections of such institutions as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.   Limited to 500 numbered copies, each copy of Tata includes a 175 mm x 125 mm original print that has been signed by the artist.   ISBN: 978-1-59005-517-5   Hardcover, 210 mm x 153 mm,    16 pages, 10 duotone plates,    1 original signed photograph.

(OPB2 011) - Leon Borensztein - tata

Signed by Julia Borissova   Handmade and cut by Hand limited edition of 315 copies,   46 photos on 72 pages, folded to 205 x 250 mm, open spread 615 x 250 mm,     printed on strong paper, housed in the box.     This unbound artist's book encourages the viewer to interact with and imagine the multiple possible forms. Each copy is signed, folded and cut out by hand creating a unique book every time.    The Nautilus project was meant to be as an imaginary museum, whose exhibits were dispersed in the urban area.    Whereas the showcase of the museum protects an object and isolates it from the audience, I placed my pieces of work right in the streets of Kronshtadt. Being fully aware of the impermanence of the paper col­lages, I chose for them such walls that kept the traces of time. I was obsessed by a desire to feel them and to know the town by touch.    The cracks and stains on those walls resembled either some underwater land­scapes or manuscripts of an unknown civilization or a message to the future left by every passing day. I wanted to capture their essence, bringing the images of the marine world and a human, which tried to conquer the waves.     The Nautilus project keeps developing as a book, that is a mobile exhi­bition and installation. The holes in the pages allow the viewer to focus on the separate fragments of images and to divide the figures and the background. This idea occurred to me as reference to Captain Nemo?s Nautilus in the book by Jules Verne. This submarine was a sort of museum and gave an opportunity to contemplate the ruins of Atlantis through the observation glass.   Review by Douglas Stockdale, Photobook Journal,   What is a museum? One brief definition is offered by Wikipedia; an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Then what is an imaginary museum? This is the subject of Julia Borissova?s recent photobook Nautilus.   Borissova?s urban setting for her imaginary museum could also be considered an imaginary city, as until recently Kronstadt, a heavily fortified city off the coast from St Petersburg, Russia, was closed to outsiders. A mysterious island fortress city that could be seen and experienced only from a distance.   To investigate her concept Borissova created a series of paper photo-collages that she affixed to the exterior of the walls of various buildings and structures within Kronstadt. Unlike a museum these paper photo-collages are impermanent and affected by the natural elements of sunlight, moisture, temperature and individuals who in passing reach out to connect. She then documented the location and placement of these transitionary elements to create a historical record and then noted their locations onto an old city map creating a Museum Guide to direct the imagination.   A copy of this Guide is included with her documentation project of her imaginary museum, but without a cross reference to the site locations and the visual records. The lack of context further ensuring that the reader will require the full use of their imagination when using her Guide as to what is potentially located where with the minimal visual clues.   As a site-specific artist project questions arise as to why one location is selected over another and why is a specific photo-montage applied to a specific site? She provides some background as to her choices; ?The cracks and stains on those walls resemble either some underwater landscapes or manuscripts of an unknown civilization or a message to the future left by every passing day.?   We are transported to her imaginary museum by a convoluted, layered and complex book object. To compound the complexity and ensure multiple readings to tease one?s imagination, Borissova did not bind the book?s interior pages but allows these to be tucked loosely together. To the point that once the unbound book is dissembled to evaluate the various visual combinations, one is not entirely sure that the subsequent reassembly may be correct. As though that might really be relevant for Borissova?s conceptual purpose and intent.   Many of the pages have die-cut holes resembling port-hole windows and we swept away on a voyage similar to one undertaken by Jules Verne?s fantasy ship Nautilus under the direction of Captain Nemo. On this voyage we are offered brief glimpses of a vision and upon turning the page (corner) and opening the gate-fold to encounter the grander view. After encountering a number of these visual teasers, the reader can start anticipating the larger perspectives yet to unfold.   Borissova thus offers us a wonderful opportunity to visit and dream in her imaginary museum based on the urban landscape of Kronstadt, the once imaginary city.

Nautilus

Limited edition of 500 Signed and NUmbered Copies   Signed by the Photographer   ?The Sweating Subject is a series of group portraits of tribal chiefs and their court, which includes myself, photographer Jan Banning. All are members of the Gonda or Dagomba tribe in the Northern Territories of Ghana ? except for me: I am from the Netherlands. I came to Ghana on an assignment to photograph the mixing of tradition and modernity and was invited by the chiefs to have my photo taken with them.   Much has already been said about the power of the photographer who travels the world and records ?the other?. But although the camera position, lighting and other aesthetic and technical details for these photographs were determined by me, I am just as much an object as all the other people portrayed. They are ?selfies? without self-determination: in the end it was my driver or one of my interpreters who decided when to press the button. And although formally the photographer, I was as expectant and powerless as everyone else at the decisive moment.   The Sweating Subject recalls colonial photography in which we see a white man pose as the big boss together with his nonwhite ?subjects?. But this white man is a lot less imposing as he sits in the midst of the chiefs and their courtiers who, despite their heavy and warm ceremonial clothes, look proud, dignified and completely in their element. In fact, he looks like a stranger, misplaced and perspiring heavily, so unsuited is he to the climate.? ? Jan Banning   The Sweating Subject is limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print that has been signed by the artist.   ISBN: 978-1-59005-509-0   Hardcover, 6 x 8 1/2, 16 pages, 15 four-color plates, 1 original signed photograph.

(OPB2 008) Jan Banning - The Sweating Subject

Jan Banning   -  Red Utopia   Red Utopia is a non-propagandistic search for what is left of communism, 100 years after the Russian Revolution. The photographs show interiors of party offices and their iconography, as well as environmental portraits of party officials and activists: people who, unlike their colleagues in communist dictatorships, chose for membership of such a party out of a sense of conviction and free choice against the prevailing neoliberal trend. Red Utopia focuses on five ?non-communist? countries where this ideology still plays a role of some (and sometimes remarkable) importance: India, Italy, Nepal, Portugal, and Russia.    Long before the Russian Revolution of 1917, communism was a source of inspiration for idealists and revolutionaries who sought a fairer society. The struggle between communism and capitalism was one of the main themes in recent history, certainly between 1917 and 1989.   The gritty experiences of real socialism, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of neoliberalism seemed to deliver the final blow to the communist ideology. Many communist parties were disbanded after 1989 or slowly bled dry. While the gap between rich and poor widened in many countries from the 80s on, the Free Market seemed to have become the only remaining ideology.   In 2008, Dutch photographer Jan Banning gained worldwide recognition with his critically acclaimed book Bureaucratics (Nazraeli Press), edited by Martin Parr, that garnered rave reviews. Banning?s art work is in the collections of numerous museums, including High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; and the Centraal Museum in his home town Utrecht. His photo series have been published in print and online media such as National Geographic, TIME, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Days Japan, Sunday Times Magazine, and The Guardian Weekend, among many others.   ISBN: 978-15-90054-67-3   Format: 280 x 370 mm = 11 x 14.5 inch   Design: Peter Jonker   Publisher: Ipso Facto, Utrecht, NL and Nazraeli, CA, US (co-published)   Language: English

Red Utopia

Imagined as a sequel to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible by Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen, The Last Testament features visual accounts and stories of seven men around the world who claim to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Building on biblical form and structure, chapters dedicated to each Jesus include excerpts of their scriptural testaments, laying out their theology and demands on mankind in their own words. Through Bendiksen?s personal testimonies and intimate portraits, The Last Testament investigates the boundaries of religious faith, and a world in need of salvation, yearning for a new prophet. Whether escaping an angry mob in the streets with the Jesus of Kitwe, joining a Messianic birthday pilgrimage in Siberia, or witnessing the End of Days with Moses in South Africa, Bendiksen immerses himself among the disciples of each Jesus. He takes at face value that each is the one true Messiah returned to Earth, to forge an account that?s both a work of apocalyptic journalism and of a compelling artistic imagination.   Paperback: 464 pages   Publisher: Aperture; 01 edition (7 Sept. 2017)   Language: English   ISBN-13: 978-1597114288   Dimensions: 16.5 x 4.4 x 25.4 cm

The Last Testement

Signed and Numbered with an original print tipped in   Nazraeli One Picture Book   One Picture Book 85:   The photograph Audience from Roger Ballen?s book 'Asylum of the Birds' has been deconstructed to afford viewers a more intimate look at the pictorial elements contained within it. In Ballen's contribution to our One Picture Book series, 'The Audience', the individual drawings from the photographs are extruded singularly, presenting the reader with a close-up look at Roger Ballen's drawings. 'The Audience' is limited to 500 numbered copies, and includes an original signed photograph by Roger Ballen.   ISBN: 978-1-59005-414-7   Hardcover, 185 x 145 mm,   16 pages, 11 duotone plates,    1 original signed photograph.

(OPB#085) - The Audience (OPB)

David Bailey - Delhi Dilemma   Pink is the navy blue of India. Diana Vreeland How does one photograph Delhi without the results looking like cliched, tourist-friendly images from the pages of National Geographic? How does a photographer of David Baileys standing portray India without seeming condescending? Bailey has been to India fifteen times, and in these photographs he avoids depicting the cultural and economic differences between East and West that can make photos of the country seem overly didactic. Instead, Bailey depicts the colours, textures and people that characterise Delhi a magenta sari, an infant walking down a rust-coloured road, a bright blue plastic tarpaulin and so creates a portrait of the city that is sensitive without being self-indulgent.   Paperback: 5 x 26 x 33 cm,    440 pages   Publisher: Steidl (1 Oct 2012)   ISBN-13: 978-3865219916

Delhi Dilemma

What do flowers, skulls and contact sheets have in common - Not much you might think, but David Bailey begs to differ. This book combines Bailey's recent colour photographs of still-life flowers and skulls, with black and white contacts of his iconic celebrity portraiture and fashion work from the 1960s.   One might analyze Bailey's combination of these bodies of work in light of the vanitas tradition, seeing it as a commentary on mortality and the passing of time. Indeed such a reading is tempting when comparing images of wilting roses with contacts of Brian Jones and John Lennon, both of whom appear confident in the prime of youth, unaware of the fates that will befall them.   But perhaps this is too much, and Bailey himself would probably tell you so. For him, the flowers, skulls and contacts are simply different projects that he was working on simultaneously and decided to combine because he likes the idea of 'eclectic collections'. Enough said.   Hardcover    ISBN: 9783869301280

Flowers, Skulls, Contacts

David Bailey - Stardust   It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary. David Bailey The portraits in this book have been personally selected by Bailey from the wide range of subjects and groups that he has captured so brilliantly over the last five decades: actors, writers, musicians, politicians, film-makers, models, artists and people encountered on his travels to Australia, India, Sudan and Papua New Guinea; many of them famous, some unknown, all of them engaging and memorable. Baileys Stardust will be accompanied by a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in spring 2014, which will then tour to venues on four continents. The book, like the exhibition, is structured thematically, with iconic images presented alongside many lesser-known and previously unseen portraits, and includes an illuminating introduction by the art historian Tim Marlow. Initially engaged as an assistant to John French in 1959, Bailey was contracted by British Vogue the following year. He has since worked for the French, Italian and American editions of the magazine, created album sleeves for major recording artists such as the Rolling Stones, directed television commercials, and made documentary films, including in-depth studies of Cecil Beaton, Luchino Visconti and Andy Warhol. Baileys photographs helped to define the cultural and social scene of the 1960s, and immortalising figures from the worlds of fashion, music, film and art soon elevated Bailey to the status of celebrity himself. Antonionis cult film Blow-up (1966), about a London fashion photographer, was inspired by Bailey, whose life was also dramatised recently in the BBC film Well Take Manhattan (2012), which tells the story of his 1962 New York fashion shoot with the model Jean Shrimpton.   Hardcover: 272 pages   Publisher: National Portrait Gallery (6 Feb 2014)   ISBN-13: 978-1855144521   Product Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 2.2 cm

Stardust

Signed by the Photographer   'Each photograph unfolds itself as a personal mirror, meant only for you, like an unexpected gift. This is the free magic one finds in the world of Machiel Botman.' - Brigitte Ollier, Libration. A key figure in contemporary Dutch photography, Machiel Botman has always photographed as a way to understand life. He is not restrained by photographic conventions, but rather welcomes mistakes and surprises that combine with the highly personal nature of his subjects to create, as Ms. Ollier described it, 'the world of Machiel Botman. - Like his individual photographs, Botman's books and writings are autobiographical and chronicle the stages in his life, but they do not follow a linear narrative. 'One Tree', the artist's third monograph, comprises a collection of images that are at once dark and hopeful, challenging and inviting. The book ends with Botman's short story, 'The hawk & the cat', which plays off wonderfully with the images preceding it. Printed in Holland under the direct supervision of the artist, 'One Tree' is a beautifully-produced artist's book that belongs in the collection of every serious photographic library. This first printing is limited to 1,500 copies.    SBN: 978-1-59005-333-1   Hardcover, slipcased,    6 x 10, 72 pages, 40 duotone plates.

one tree

Signed and Numbered with an original print tipped in   Nazraeli One Picture Book   One Picture Book 76: American Portraits   Leon Borensztein   Leon Borensztein's monograph "American Portraits 1979-1989" was published in 2011 to wide critical acclaim. For his contribution to our One Picture Book series, Borensztein shows variations on some of his most striking subjects, giving even greater depth to his original publication. A signed original print of the cover image from Borensztein's monograph is included at the back of the book. A limited number of copies are available at this price.   Hardcover, 5 1/2 x 7 1/4,    16 pages, 13 duotone plates,   1 original photograph.    ISBN: 978-1-59005-359-1

(OPB#076) - American Portraits (OPB)

This is the collectors edition limited to 100 copies which are slip cased, signed, numbered and come with a 10 x 8 Silver Print which has been hand printed by John Blakemore.    Signed by the Photographer    Photographs 1955-2010 is the first major retrospective book of the renowned British photographer John Blakemore. The book explores the extensive range of work that Blakemore has undertaken over a period of almost 60 years of visual exploration.    Recognised as a master photographer, a craftsman printer and an inspirational teacher, Blakemore discovered photography in the 1950s during National Service. He was initially influenced by the style of the photographers of Picture Post but at an early stage began to explore a more personal approach to photography, developing his unique and elegant photographic style in areas as diverse as still life, documentary and portraiture. He is particularly renowned for his richly detailed and nuanced still lifes and landscapes. Over recent years he has been making exquisite hand made books, working with both black & white and colour photographs, and has made an important contribution to the craft through the many workshops he has run. As a teacher he has influenced generations of photographers over a thirty year period of teaching at the University of Derby, where he is Emeritus Professor of Photography. He has also run countless workshops both in the UK and abroad. Students and fellow photographers often acknowledge that Blakemore has 'enriched their lives beyond compare'.    John Blakemore has published five previous books, the first of which, John Blakemore, British Image No. 3, was published in 1977. His work has appeared in many publications and since 1974 he has exhibited all over the world in countries as diverse as Vietnam, China, Mexico, Chile and Argentina as well throughout Europe and the United States. He has also featured in several television programmes such as Exploring Photography and World Photography. Blakemore has been the recipient of several Arts Council awards, a British Council Travelling Exhibition and in 1992 won the Fox Talbot Award for Photography. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 1998 and in 2010 his photographic archive was purchased for the nation by Birmingham Central Library.    clothbound hardback   272 pages, 245mm x 300mm   over 280 duotone & colour photographs   ISBN: 978-1-907893-12-4

John Blakemore (Signed Ltd Ed)  - Photographs 1955 - 2010

An essential chapter in the history of 20th-century photography, of interest to both aficionados and scholars    Still fresh and original, this body of work remains highly influential German-born photographer   Erwin Blumenfeld began his career in the Dadaist circles of Berlin and Paris in the 1930s. Later, he garnered success as a famed fashion photographer for such US magazines as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and as a pioneer of modern advertising in his commercials for cosmetics.       Blumenfeld had a disdain for mainstream conformity and without compromise, his images were infused with an experimental energy. With daring in-camera optical effects and a precise control of lighting and processing, he was a technical genius?never leaving any detail to chance. Working mainly in color, his innovative style continues to shape contemporary photography.   ISBN:978-3-652-00006-2   Format:27 x 36 cm   96 pp., Hardcover, 60 color and b/w photographs   Text in English and German

Stern Portfolio #65 Erwin Blumenfeld

Few careers with a camera have been as narrated and celebrated as that of Margaret Bourke-White. With legendary fortitude and energy, Bourke-White time and again nailed the assignments she was given with formal brilliance and incisive descriptive power. In this series of images, we feel a relaxing of her precision as she recorded an emblematic struggle between natural force and human ingenuity, between our limitations and the grand devices we create to defy them. In the March 22, 1937 issue of LIFE, a publication just six months old, there was a cover story entitled 'Parachutes.' Margaret Bourke-White's pictures told the story of the Irving Air Chute Company in Buffalo, New York, the world's largest manufacturer of parachutes. The photographic sequence of parachutes being tested by Irving employees in this book did not make the article in 1937, but survive instead as diminutive and precious vintage prints, as art. Their wonder is in their ambiguity, their lack of captions and context, their archetypal address of the questions of human importance, of who is really pulling the strings. Printed in duotone on matt stock, and bound in Japanese saifu, this elegant little book is an important addition to the literature on this extraordinary artist. Introduction by Trudy Wilner Stack.    ISBN: 1-59005-013-4   Hardcover, 6 1/2 x 10,    32 pages, 20 duotone plates.

Twenty Parachutes

Guy Bourdin was one of the most acclaimed fashion and advertising photographers of all time. No stranger to controversy, his bold, stylized images constantly broke new ground. Bourdin's sophisticated aesthetic made dramatic use of shapes and color and his subtexts were tantalizing and often bizarre. He made complex, surreal narratives his hallmark 'linking simple objects with complicated stories. Many of his tableaux were enigmatic, guiding the viewer into a dream world laden with sex, bizarre juxtapositions and sometimes a hint of violence. There is nothing coy or cozy about his art'       Highly successful, his images graced the pages of Vogue, Harper?s Bazaar and many others. His work helped defined the brands of Chanel, Ungaro and Bloomingdales.      ISBN:978-3-652-00002-4   Format:10 5/8 x 14 1/6 in.   96 pp.,  Hardcover   50 color and b/w photographs   Text in English and German

Stern Portfolio #61 - Guy Bourdin

David Bradford is a photographer and New York City taxi driver, who epitomizes the concept of carrying a camera during regular day-to-day activities. Bradford mainly shoots while he's working, capturing the essence of New York City in all its human, architectural and climatic diversity. In his second book, he presents a selection of his passengers, which sat down at his backseat. The result is a collection that captures the breadth of humanity - the whole world of people - that can pass through the back seat of a New York City taxi.    Hardcover: 240 pages  Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches     Publisher: daab    Language: English    ISBN-10: 3937718850    ISBN-13: 978-3937718859

Back Seat Book

Signed by the Photographer    Limited to 500 Signed and Numbered Copies   with a small print tipped in    In "Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny," artist Edward Bateman creates images that explore photography's role as historical evidence. Presented as a collection of discovered carte de visites, this book documents a forgotten age of mechanical wonders. Carte de visites were an immensely popular form of photography in the last half of the nineteenth century. They were widely traded and collected, with subjects ranging from portraits of everyday people to those of luminaries. Bateman uses this history to question the idea that all photographs are bound to a particular moment in time. Combining 19th century imagery with fabricated automatons, he creates images of the past with an iconography that is usually used to depict the future. They invite a comparison between automatons and cameras; for the first time in human history, objects of our creation were looking back at us. He imagines an era where memory and change marched hand in hand, creating the world we live in today and leaving behind worlds that only exist in images.    ISBN: 978-1-59005-265-5   Hardcover, 5 12 x 7 1/4,    16 pages, 12 four-color plates, 1 original print.

(OPB#058) Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny (OPB)

In the American west during the last 35 years, the number of fires increased by a factor of four; the average fire went from lasting one week to lasting five; the total area burned increased by six-and-a-half times; and the average fire season increased by 78 days. All of which is to say, as Bill McKibben points out in his introduction to Wildfire, we really shouldn't be calling them wildfires any more. Sasha Bezzubov has gained wide recognition for his photographs of natural disasters in his ongoing project 'Things Fall Apart.' Wildfire, the artist's first monograph, is comprised of 32 large-scale photographs of the aftermath of forest fires in California. Using the genre of landscape photography, a tradition born with, and used to celebrate, industrial expansion, these photographs evidence the fragility of the man-made as it is transformed into dreamscapes of apocalyptic proportions. 'The cycle of destruction and regeneration, of death and birth, is a reality that is not subject to human contravection. Despite the muted palette, these pictures present stunning vistas of natural wreckage that mirror man-made war zones. The vastness of the devastation is at once appalling and breathtaking.'  Mary Hrbacek, New York Art World   ISBN: 978-1-59005-247-1   Hardcover, 12 x 13,    64 pages, 32 four-color plates.

Wildfire

This remarkable album is a collaboration between Rudy Burckhardt, one of the great New York photographers of the 1930s and 1940s, and his companion and lifelong friend, the poet and dance critic Edwin Denby. Previously unpublished, and reproduced here in facsimile, New York, N. Why? is a unique, handmade book containing 67 photographs and seven sonnets. Now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, it contains many of Burckhardt's best-known images, dazzlingly sequenced into three urban themes advertising, pedestrians, and street furniture. The photographer and poet met in Basel, Switzerland in 1934 and moved the following year to New York. There, the Burckhardt instinctively sought out what others overlooked, 'the abstract modernist tableaux of fire hydrants, standpipes, cornices, and columns; the readymade collage of newsstands and storefronts; and the complex choreography of pedestrians darting and weaving through crowded intersections.' An accompanying essay by Doug Eklund, Associate Curator in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan, examines the album in relation to Burckhardt's contemporaneous films, Denby's pioneering writing on dance from the same moment, and the origins of the New York School in painting, photography, and poetry.    Hardcover,    12 x 14,    52 pages, 67 duotone plates.   ISBN:  978-1-59005-229-7

New York N Why

Common Ground is a stunning collection of more than 160 evocative photographs, paintings, drawings, and sculptures selected from the collection of Julia J. Norrell, a child of the South and the daughter of two members of Congress who treasures art's revelation of both beauty and truth (however disturbing), capacity for inspiring compassion, and celebration of diversity and resiliency. Her vision is praised by Bill Clinton in his foreword and elucidated in detail by Philip Brookman, a curator at the Corcoran Galley of Art in Washington, D.C. The works themselves embody essential and universal aspects of the human experience, namely our sense of place and time, hope and belief, memory and tribute. The photographs rule the book, particularly indelible images by Walker Evans, Roy DeCarava, Chester Higgins Jr., and Gordon Parks, but every work is compelling, and the juxtapositions and synergy found between this unusual book's covers are truly inspiriting. Donna Seaman  This book explores the universal human experiences of struggle, transcendence and salvation through painting, sculpture, folk art, photography and assemblage from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Over 160 evocative works reflect five key themes: time, past and present; memory and tribute; community; hope and belief; and a sense of place. Artists include Brassaï, William Christenberry, Walker Evans, Howard Finster, Robert Frank, Laura Gilpin, Jacob Lawrence, Sally Mann, Zwelethu Mthethwa, James VanDerZee, Roman Vishniac, Carrie Mae Weems, Fred Wilson and many others.

common Ground

Signed by the Photographer   Originally from London's working-class East End, David Bailey became one of the first celebrity photographers. With a meteoric career beginning as fashion photographer with British Vogue, he immortalized such Sixties icons as supermodel Jean Shrimpton, Terence Stamp and The Beatles. His tightly cropped images were a radical departure from photographic tradition.    This groundbreaking approach gave his black-and-white photography a frantic energy that reflected the times. Socializing with the top names from the beau monde, he quickly became as famous as his subjects.    This portfolio focuses on his most exciting work since 2000. Always the chronicler of the times, Bailey's subjects here include such personalities as Michael Caine, Morrissey and Damon Albarn.     A compelling overview of a cultural and photographic legend's most recent work   Size: 10 x 14 in. Stern Portfolio    96 pp., Softcover.    60 color and b/w photographs    Text in English and German    ISBN: 9783-570-19736-3

Stern Portfolio #50 - David Bailey

Andrea Robbins and Max Becher draw on a rich visual vocabulary gleaned as much from travel brochures, postcards and National Geographic as from the photography of Walker Evans, Edward Curtis and Stephen Shore. Their work, a somewhat surreal nonfiction, uses documentary images to examine contradictions of place and cultural identity: that is, when Germans tie on Native American headdresses and Midwesterners parade in Bavarian costumes, Robbins and Becher are there. In their own words,  The primary focus of our work is what we call the transportation of place--situations in which one limited or isolated place strongly resembles another distant one. Everywhere, not only in the new world, such situations are accumulating and accepted as genuine locales. Traditional notions of place, in which culture and geographic location neatly coincide, are being challenged by legacies of slavery, colonialism, holocaust, immigration, tourism and mass-communication. Whether the subject is Germany in Africa, Germans dressing as Native Americans, American towns dressed as Germany, New York in Las Vegas, New York in Cuba or Cuba in exile, our interest tends to be a place out of place with its various causes and consequences.  Their work posits vital questions for a globalized world and for photography.

Andrea Robbins & Max Becher: The Transportation of Place

Originally from London's working-class East End, David Bailey became one of the first celebrity photographers. With a meteoric career beginning as fashion photographer with British Vogue, he immortalized such Sixties icons as supermodel Jean Shrimpton, Terence Stamp and The Beatles. His tightly cropped images were a radical departure from photographic tradition.   This groundbreaking approach gave his black-and-white photography a frantic energy that reflected the times. Socializing with the top names from the beau monde, he quickly became as famous as his subjects.    This portfolio focuses on his most exciting work since 2000. Always the chronicler of the times, Bailey's subjects here include such personalities as Michael Caine, Morrissey and Damon Albarn.    A compelling overview of a cultural and photographic legend's most recent work      Size: 10 x 14 in. Stern Portfolio    96 pp., Softcover.   60 color and b/w photographs   Text in English and German    ISBN: 9783-570-19736-3

Born in England in 1904, Beaton is one of the most significant photographers of the 20th century. This eccentric multi-talented individual also worked as a designer and novelist. Responsible for the ground-breaking and much-imitated glamour portrait, Beaton's subjects included Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn, Maria Callas, Sir Winston Churchill, and the British royal family. In 1939, he took a detour from the world of high style and produced some of the most memorable images of Britain in the war years. After the war, he continued his work as a portrait photographer, but started to design costumes for Hollywood films, winning an Oscar for ?My Fair Lady.? In the 60's Beaton gave fresh life to his photographic style, with portraits of Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, and many Hollywood legends. 'comprehensive overview of one of the 20th century's great photographers' An important documentary record of the finest historical and celebrity photography by a master of the medium.

Stern Portfolio #40 - Cecil Beaton

Ever since the virtual overnight success of his first book, The End of the Game, Peter Beard has managed to transform the stuff of his life into beautiful and meaningful works of art. Whether he's documenting the travesty of big game hunting in Africa or reworking the detritus of his daily life into richly evocative photographic collages, Peter Beard remains one of the most revered contemporary photographers. The works in this volume, collected exclusively for Stern, showcase some of Beard's most stunning creations. Focused largely on themes of conservation and animal endangerment, and intertwined with fragments from his life and work in these arenas, this volume is an unconventional art photographer's declaration of love for the African continent he calls home. At the same time, it is an eloquent appeal to the people of the world to refrain from willfully destroying the planet.

Stern Portfolio #26 - Peter Beard

Photographer Jeff Brouws has spent the past twenty years crisscrossing America searching for beauty amid the commonplace. This album is a small, fat catalog of a quintessential Everyday America: partially painted pickup trucks, dilapidated bowling alley signs, lonely trailers and mobile homes, abandoned drive-in theaters and filling stations, and houses painted in loud tropical hues in defiance of suburban monotony. Brouws defines his black and white and color subjects as readymade art found by chance in the landscape. Essays by Diana Gaston, Luc Sante, and others consider Brouws as an artist and also his various series.        From Publishers Weekly 'Partially Painted Pickup Trucks, Storage Units, Abandoned Drive-Ins, Bowling -in captionless photographic chapters, this long, postcard-shaped book is a clean visual meditation on the United States as man-made artifact. Brouws (Inside the Live Reptile Tent), whose photographs are in the collections of the Whitney and the J. Paul Getty museums, has traveled the country riffing on simple roadside themes, uniting them here under Duchamp's post-modernist aegis. While far from Duchamp's spirallingly ironic meditations on formalism, Brouws's photos do form a subtle meditation on time and culture. Two pages of freight cars seem nearly identical except for the amount of rust on each. A chapter called  Freshly Painted Houses  offers beautiful images of houses above paint chips with names like  serenity  and  tawny taffy.  Luc Sante (Low Life) sets up  Abandoned Drive-Ins,  and M. Mark (a founder of the Village Voice Literary Supplement) tells of her own experiences with  Farm Forms.  There is an homage to Ed Ruscha's gas stations, introduced by Brouws, who says that the gas station was his  first true `hang out,' a place to feel my coming manhood and be in the company of men who were good with their minds and hands.  As curator Diana Gaston (Abelardo Morell and the Camera Eye) writes in her introduction, there is  a fondness for the unabashed attempts at survival that [Brouws] finds in these remote places -and his pleasure in collecting them is apparent throughout the book.-- finds in these remote places -and his pleasure in collecting them is apparent throughout the book.  Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.      From Booklist Walker Evans made worn surfaces and abandoned structures express a nation profoundly stressed by the Depression. Later, city lensers Helen Leavitt and Aaron Siskind homed in on peeling posters and paint, graffiti, and the marks of children's games--she to lyricize the human spirit, he to disclose  found  abstract expressionist artworks. Brouws produces galleries, in color and black and white, of abandoned drive-in theaters, bowling alleys, automobile trailers, and gas stations; worn boxcars and farm buildings; words and images on storefronts and signs; and half-painted pickup trucks, brilliantly repainted tract houses, and rental storage units. Like Michael P. Harker in Harker's Barns [BKL Mr 15 03], Brouws captures a fading material culture, but his evenly lit, confrontational pictures of big, simple forms aren't in the least elegiac. Instead, they show the kind of delight in form and perspective that makes the paintings and photos of the superrealist American response to cubism known as precisionism so appealing. Adding to their attraction are superb layout and accompanying essays almost as good as the pictures. Ray Olson Copyright © American Library Association.    Hardcover: 272 pages    Publisher: Chronicle Books (February 1, 2003)     Language: English     ISBN-10: 0811836770  ISBN-13: 978-0811836777    Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches    Shipping Weight: 1.2 Kg

Readymades: American Roadside Artifacts

Among the many lessons we have learned from photography since its inception are a few about the nature of reality and its representation. Long considered a mirror image of the real world, a direct and objective record of what exists in the visual stratosphere, the photograph has come to be understood as something much more complicated and variable, something easily manipulated and modified. Subjective Realities is thus a most apt title for this publication, which presents a stellar selection of contemporary photography from the Refco Collection. Included are works by Vito Acconci, Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Chris Burden, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Sophie Calle, Gregory Crewdson, Rineke Dijkstra, Olafur Eliasson, Barbara Ess, Walker Evans, Adam Fuss, Ann Hamilton, Eva Hesse, Axel Hutte, Seydou Keita, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Ana Mendieta, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mariko Mori, Catherine Opie, Richard Prince, and many, many more artists. An essay by Dave Hickey introduces the book, and short texts on individual artists have been contributed by Lynne Cooke, Kathryn Hixson, A.M. Homes, Glenn O'Brien, Saul Ostrow, Luc Sante, Katy Siegel, and others.

Subjective Realities: The Refco Collection of Contemporary Photography

2005 second edition of the book.   Anything can happen on the streets of New York City. For instance, a former art director for Saks Fifth Avenue could decide to become a taxi driver, and then start photographing all the other crazy things and moments of city life going on around him. David Bradford is one of the few American-born, English-speaking cabbies left in Manhattan, and the only one he knows of that shoots photos while he drives. Using high-speed black and white film and an automatic camera, Bradford has been shooting the New York streets since 1990. The more than 600 photos here reveal an edgy, unguarded New York, catching street vendors, other drivers, billboards, the soaring architecture of skyscrapers and bridges, nighttime revelers, graffiti, and abstract patterns of lights and rhythmic structures, along with such whimsical images as a line of young women by a truck, each toting a bare-bottomed male mannequin.    Several essays describe Bradford and his methods, in English, German, and French.  The first misconception people have about David Bradford is that he is a cab driver who picked up a camera one day and started taking pictures. In fact, throughout his early life David had been drawn to the visual and performing arts. As a teenager he studied dance and played the trombone. Later, when injury forced him away from dance, he got into drawing. In 1978, with a degree in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design, Bradford moved to New York City. He became an art director for Saks Fifth Avenue, serving their advertising department for a decade.   Bradford began freelance illustration and design work after leaving Saks and started driving a taxi in 1990, hoping to find more freedom for independent projects. Soon Bradford was taking photographs from the cab to utilize as reference for his drawings. Then, in 1993, he embraced photography in earnest and began the creation of his personal portrait of the city.   Ten years of shooting the city culminated in the book  Drive-By Shootings,  which was published in June of 2000 to critical acclaim and commercial success. It sold out it's first printing of 50,000 within three months, riding the top of the German photo book bestseller list.  Drive by Shootings  is in its second printing, April 2005.    Back Seat Book  is David's second book published December, 06. This is a more intimate, reflective work borne of the catastrophe that occurred in the city in 2001. A more personal work that captures the breadth of humanity - the whole world of people that can pass through the back seat of a New York City Taxi.   These days David still captures images of the city from behind the wheel, but now he does it with his cell phone video camera. These 15 second movies are often enhanced by incidental music that is captured from the taxi radio at the moment they are shot. No post-production manipulation is ever involved.    Hardcover: 128 pages     Publisher: Könemann im Tandem (31 May 2005)     Language English, German & French     ISBN-10: 3833112980     ISBN-13: 978-3833112980     Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 15.6 x 3.6 cm

Drive-By Shottings

The White Room: a Poem by Jay Ramsey with photographs by Carole Bruce   Published by Rivelin Grapheme Press & five seasons Press, 1988   Stiff Illustrated covers, in excellent condition except fo a slight craes in the top corner of the cover, ans a slight yellowing to the front cover.    15 Duotone studies of the Pembrokshire coastline.

The White Poem

European photography guide, 1984   Published by European Photography    paperback in very good condition although bottom corner a little bumped.    A guide to galleries, museums and publishers, country by country.

European photography guide

Baron   Publisher by Frederick Muller Ltd.   Bound in Red and Blue cloth with gold embossed lettering to front and spine.  Binding tight with previous owners name and date on inside Frontspeice.    Autobiography of the famous photographer with a foreword by Peter Ustinov.     No date except for previous owners date of 1959, presumed first edition although not marked.

Books By Authors with Surnames starting with: b