Paris Photo: First days

Wednesday: After a somewhat miserable overnight American Airlines flight I arrived safe and sound to Paris and settled into my tiny studio. My China trip's Cathay Pacific flight spoiled me as they do a much better job at moving people through the air.

Paris Photo is really intersting. With just a few quick walks around I now know why people come here. The only other festival I have attended is the AIPAD in New York. Paris Photo makes AIPAD look like a sleep study center.

I expected to have more time to write but the days have been long and exhausting. Two hours after I arrived into Paris, my first order of business was to find the Catherine Putman gallery and pick up the copies of Sophie Ristelhueber's books that were sent for the signing. Using my backpack I walked the 50+ lbs of them over to Paris Photo and settled in with the Schaden crew.

Markus and Sebastian keep excitedly introducing me to people with descriptions of 5B4 as the "best photobook blog" to which 90% respond that they hadn't ever heard of it. I have, however, been enjoying meeting many readers and watching the Errata books get the attention. At one point I was introduced to a gentleman who gave me a birthday present of Cuny Janssen's Macedonia book. Then, in a nice coincidence about an hour later, I was introduced to Cuny herself. Thank you to all for the kind 40th birthday wishes.

Thursday: This was the big day for me...Sophie's booksigning at 5pm. Sophie and I had never met in person before so after almost a year of correspondence it was a pleasure to discover that we got along swimmingly. Around 4:45 people were starting to linger around the booth as Wolfgang Zurborn's signing was winding up. Sophie stepped up and everything went pretty much without a hitch. I was happy to see all of the books sell and we ran out just as the line was dwindling down.



Afterwards I was in bad need of a drink so went out with old friends Matt Stuart, Christoph Agou, Charlie Ryhne and new friend Sebastien Girard who is an avid Sergio Larrain fan. Long night. I'll spare the details because I still can't quite focus on anything except not getting sick. I never want to drink again.

More later and I will actually write about books at some point...

Paris Photo booksigning with Sophie Ristelhueber

As I mentioned before I will be attending Paris Photo this year to promote the Errata Editions Books on Books series. I will be taking reservations on the remaining limited edition sets which are moving quickly. If you are also attending, please stop by Markus Schaden's booth near the entrance and introduce yourself.

Also as mentioned we are having a book signing for Sophie Ristelhueber on Thursday the 13th from 5-6pm at Schaden's booth (#Ed6 on the floor plan). We have a very limited amount of books that were shipped over at great expense from China so if you think you'd like to pick up a copy of Books on Books #3: Fait by Sophie Ristelhueber, I'd advise to show up early. Sorry but due to the limited amount we also cannot hold books for people.

There are many, many book signings taking place every few hours through the course of the festival so check www.parisphoto.fr/files/pdf_file_51.pdf for a complete listing.

I will also be doing some blogging on all of the European books that never seemed to make it to the US so stay tuned for new discoveries.

Beaufort West by Mikhael Subotzky

Fear is a huge driving factor in 21st century life as evidenced by recent political acts of desperation. Terrorism, crime and illegal immigration have kept the media busy with threatening sounding stories and "what might happen" scenarios that appeal to isolationism and make people comfortable with their natural tendency towards xenophobia and racism. Division created by infecting viewers with enough anxiety that they imagine the barbarians are at the gate and those entering are less than human. This is one of the many underlying themes in Mikhael Subotzky's new book from Chris Boot called Beaufort West.

Beaufort West is a small town in South Africa -- a transit point for food or sleep that sits on the long road between Cape Town and Johannesburg. As described by Subotzky, it is trapped in its own "victim/perpetrator divide" due to unemployment, crime and domestic violence. As Subotzky describes, "The problem is that so much of the way crime is represented in the popular media polarizes victim and perpetrator, us and them, the law-abiding citizens and those who the law-abiding citizens have to fear. I almost see this as a new kind of apartheid - between those that fear and those that are feared."

The town radiates out from a large traffic circle within which lies the town's prison. Subotzky uses this metaphor as the starting point for an exploration into the town's post-apartheid reality. Perhaps in proportion to the economic reality of Beaufort West, Subotzky spends more time among the lesser fortunate black residents. Trusted to work freely, he describes their lives with surprising intimacy that at times even surprised him. "Major and I were hanging out with a group of gangsters, and they were talking about going off to rob someone's house... To my surprise they asked if I wanted to come along."

Subotzky structures Beaufort West as if we were airdropped into town and left to wander. Quickly we get swept up in the lives of the marginalized; the trashpickers at the local dump, the white citizens at a livestock show, households that set up makeshift taverns in their homes, a prostitute as she engages in sex with truckers, and finally, Subotzky leads us to prison - the final stop for many of the residents.

Subotzky's photographs are more in the camp of greats like David Goldblatt, whose In Boksburg Mikhail cites as an early influence. His medium format camera and color film frames both the spontaneity of action and the stillness of portraiture with well made compositions. These photographs owe much to the different qualities of light to add another seductive element. Whether natural or artificial, the scenes are bathed in light that falls gracefully onto the grit and grime of interiors and exteriors alike.



Beaufort West is a tight edit of 45 photographs and the book's dimensions at approximately 11" x 14" allow for a nice large plate size. The design is very clean down to the spare blue fabric coverboards. In the rear of the book, after the plates, Subotzky provides a bit of text about each image which reads as a running commentary about his process and his discoveries made during the course of his exploration.

Beauford West sits in the middle of the South African desert as a kind of real life purgatory. As Jonny Steinberg writes in his afterword, "These photographs thus represent a place in which far too many people do not possess the basic structure of what we regard as an inhabitable life; a sense of life as a project, or at any rate some sort of progression; the notion that one might leave a legacy, or build something that survives one's own death." It is that state of lethargy and punishment contrasted with a purifying grace that radiates from the subjects that Subotzky skillfully brings to our attention. In short, this is a remarkable first book from a young photographer.

Berenice Abbott two-volume slipcase set from Steidl

I find it interesting when a book makes you sit up and reassess an artist that you may have not been interested in before. For me, Berenice Abbott was important because of her recognition of Eugene Atget as one of the greatest artists of his time and her work to preserve his archive. Her photography, mostly of old New York, always took a backseat. Turns out Steidl and Commerce Graphics have just published a two-volume, slipcased retrospective that is so well done I can't believe I could have so easily averted me eyes before.

Volume I is dedicated to Abbott's early work, portraits and scientific photographs while Volume II covers the 27 years of work that made up her monumental Changing New York project.

In 1924, Abbott, who had left the United States for Paris three years earlier, met Man Ray who was looking for a photo assistant for his successful commercial studio -- someone with as little photo experience as possible so he could train them to his specific process without resistance. This was her entre into a seventy year career as a photographer. She worked under Man Ray for a few years until breaking off on her own as a portrait photographer and it was during these years as an assistant that she discovered the photographs of Eugene Atget. Turned out that Atget's studio was very close to Man Ray's and Abbott would rapidly become fascinated with the older photographer's studies of Paris at the turn of that century. Later, it would be Abbott that would find a publisher for the first book of Atget published three years after his death, Photographe de Paris.

In 1929, Abbott returned to New York and under the influence of the scope of Atget's Paris work, she embarked on her now famous project documenting New York City's energy and evolution. For me, it is the second volume of this slipcased set, concentrating on the New York work, that is most interesting.

Using a Century Universal 8x10 with a 9.5 inch Goertz Dagor lens she described the storefronts, streets, signage, residential neighborhoods and in some cases, the people of NYC. Working out the technical concerns on the ground while working, she later found funding through the Federal Arts Project for a few years. To Abbott, she was not just photographing buildings but analyzing each element of an urban environ, including its history. "The tempo of the metropolis is not of an eternity, or even time, but of the vanishing instant."

It is this quote that for me takes on such significance, for if it were not for artists like Abbott, or Atget before her, who describe these cities with such eloquence and exhaustiveness, then we wouldn't have the same understandings of transformation and history as we do now. The spirit of the ages reflected in their photographs is part of what defines those images -- part of why it is so important that they exist. Modern urban photographers, even those working in the stylistic footsteps of others, are, in the least, providing visual statements that work in similar ways.



As a set, this is the definitive collection of 268 tritone reproductions. Richly printed, everything from the paper stock to the tip-on reproductions on the book covers is elegant and seductive. The images sit on the right-hand side of the page spreads and are often accompanied by short texts from Abbott regarding the making of the individual images. Hank O'Neal provides a fine essay on Abbott life and practice in Volume I.

Abbott lived to 93 and pursued several projects until around the 1980's, still, it is the New York work that stands out as her finest achievement. One of the the most sobering lessons to be learned from Atget is one of ambition. Perhaps his dismissal of traditional concerns of creating "art" or of being an "artist" ("these are documents I make for artists"), the most liberating. Fueled by both, Abbott shifted Atget's lament of the past towards the optimism of a progressive, post-depression future filled with modernist marvels. Both were intoxicated with cities and, after great effort, left behind their documents for artists and historians alike.





PS: This is my Atget print that hangs at the front door of my apartment. It is the first thing I see when coming in from the world and last thing before venturing out into it. In that location, it seems to pose more of a challenge than inspiration. Maybe I should move it.

A Television Notebook by Robert Weaver

The most exciting discovery that came from Andy French's photobooks sale was a small illustrated datebook published in 1960 from the CBS Television Network. Titled, A Television Notebook, it contains pencil drawings by Robert Weaver that allow us a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a '60s TV studio.

Weaver sought to join illustration with journalism much in the way it existed before photography replaced it as the more acceptable medium for journalists. Although I never met him, Weaver taught at my art school SVA in the '80's.

Weaver's sketches in this notebook are fascinating. His compositions are complex - bringing both the chaos and control of production into each drawing. A couple of technicians with hidden faces stand behind some large lighting reflectors. A mass of cables from a lighting rig hangs over a cameraman at his post. Four men stand with their shadowed backs to us holding cable from a huge television camera. Make-up tables, extras, stage sets, props, editing rooms all are the center of attention rather than the "stars." If forced to make a comparison to another artist, I would say he is like Robert Frank with a pencil. Many of these had instantly reminded me of the few published Robert Frank photos made on television sets in Burbank.



Each drawing is reproduced over lined pages of a datebook giving the sense of looking through an artist's sketchbook. Laid into each copy is a calendar bookmark with an introduction by then CBS President James Aubrey. He writes, "If, like Alice in Wonderland, you could walk through the looking glass of your television set, you would find that for every performer you see on the screen there are ten more behind the screen, performing their tasks with equal dedication and split-second precision."

This datebook was one of a series published each year by CBS. The others feature other illustrators known and obscure. Out of the few that I have seen, this was by far my favorite. It is hardcover with the CBS "eye" logo debossed into the cover. The trim size measures only 6.5 x 6.5 inches square.

Ceau by Christophe Buchel and Giovanni Carmine

Many years ago I sat around a table drinking rakia with a handful of Bosnian Serbs and one was expounding on how he felt sorry for the fate of Nicolai Ceausescu, the dictator of Romania whose 24 year hold on power was cut short by firing squad in 1989. This particular Serb's argument had much to do with the memory of Ceausescu's virtues being erased by masses of Romanians "rewriting him into a villian" (his words). When he asked what I thought I was afraid to say anything because the little I knew about Ceausescu - the outlawing of abortion, the prevention of AIDS testing, crippling the economy, strong police responses to any opposition, and all of the tv appearances around food while his country was rationing (à la Haile Selassie) - wouldn't really have gone over well. My Serbian friend kept citing the quick trial and execution that followed the coup overthrow of Ceausescu's regime condemned him to infamy and slander. My opinion around that table was not popular -- you rule inspired by Stalinist dictum then you die by Stalinist inspired firing squad.

Like Stalin, Ceausescu created a cult of personality around himself and his wife Elena. The self-proclaimed "Genius of the Carpathians" and his wife, the "Mother of the Nation," commissioned thousands of painted portraits that would keep their heroic status an ever-present part of daily life among Romanians. The new title by Steidl, Ceau, presents almost 350 of these paintings in a handsome new book.

Political paintings such as these are almost predictable. They mostly portray the subject as an everyman who is inspired to lead -- conveying the idea that he is just another Romanian "Joe Sixpack" if you will, working hard and dedicating his life to bettering his country. From that startingpoint they evolve, elevating his everyday man status into god and savior. That in itself is probably not enough to sustain a 350 page book but what sets this collection apart is the variety of painting styles that describes that elevation.

The artists seem students of everyone from Ben Shahn to Lucien Freud. Page 23 drops Ceausescu's visage into a Rauschenberg-like collage. Several resemble a Diego Rivera inspired mash-up of industry and hero worship. On page 69, Ceausescu is surrounded by a group of Henry Darger's "Vivian" girls turned into "pioneers." Page 125 describes three scenes involving Nicolai and Elena overlaid by the monochrome colors of the Romanian flag in a style so close in draftsmanship and color palette to Mark Tansey it is almost unbelievable to discover the artist is Eugen Palade. So many portraits were painted that Salvador Dali was said to have once sent a tongue-in-cheek "letter of admiration" to Ceausescu.

Edited by Christophe Buchel and Giovanni Carmine, Ceau as a book is a tight elegant package. The gold debossed title on a white leather flex-bound cover sets the proper mood for hero worship. The end of the book provides a transcript of the December 25th, 1989 tribunal in which Ceausescu and his wife are tried and sentenced to death by firing squad.

The effect of Ceausescu's policies are still being felt with tens of thousands of children born under the strict abortion laws that wound up on the streets homeless. What my Serbian friend was referring to that was good about Ceausescu's rule I am still not sure. Perhaps I should send him this book so he can remind us of all that was good in Nicholai's utopia that was Romania for almost a quarter decade.

CDG / JHE by J H Engstrom

The bright orange bookcloth of J H Engstrom's new book from Steidl CDG/JHE gives an impression that it may hold promise of something light and cheerful. The internal content however is another story.

In this body of work, Engstrom sets us in the midst of Charles de Gaulle airport and, like a traveller who somehow can't seem to make it into the terminal or the exit, we wander a no man's land heavy with concrete barriers and odd bits of technology. There is a sense of stillness (in a place where everything always seems full of movement) that is almost apocalyptic.

Engstrom distresses his prints somehow and the resulting haze of greyness acts as a veil suppressing tone, color, saturation and light. While the parking lot may be full, there are no people save for one driving a baggage cart, seen only after close inspection. The stillness, in combination with the ashen air, seems daunting and inhospitable.



What we are to make of this I am not entirely sure. The photographs, with their tones of greyish blue and desaturated color are oddly beautiful. What they describe is territory that has a structure and machinery but it has all been left in dust. We pause in front of various objects: a baggage cart piled with wood, a swirl of tar on a patch of roadway, a pair of rubber boots half buried in the dry soil, the stilled luggage return and a maze of overpasses. We may wonder at their existence or use but their form is what is engaging and seductive.

After 46 images, Engstrom finishes the book with 7 images that are stills shot of a video of a man and a woman meeting and embracing. (In an airport?). That is certainly implied but uncertain. Brightly colored without the distressed look of the previous work, these few images as the final act of the book, distract from the initial tone and rhythm that we have settled into. Their inclusion seems to hint at a conceptual framework or meaning that is unclear and ultimately bothersome. The contrast between the two is not enlightening nor necessary.

Overlooking the last few pages, CDG/JHE is an compelling if enigmatic work. Due to the seductive tonalities and the cleanliness of the design, I don't mind lingering in this world of airport still lifes. But in such an environment where movement is the preoccupation, those that get left behind might risk absorbing the melancholy involved in standing still.

Errata Editions Books on Books Series Update

This morning I received the advance copies of our first four titles in the Books on Books series. I was so nervous it took me about half an hour to work up the courage to just open the box. After fighting through the packing tape and bubble-wrap I revealed four finished and shrink-wrapped copies of each book (two limited edition and two trade editions each). They looked so great shrink-wrapped I didn't want to open a set to check the binding. I remember John Gossage's advice, "Watch the binding! Don't try the 'duck lips.' Watch the binding." What he meant (about the binding) was that the bulking dummies I received long ago were bound by hand. These finished copies are machine bound which tends to be slightly tighter and often with more glue. I am happy to say that the binding feels perfect, the books open fully and everything is solid. Not too much glue etc. So as we speak, the bulk are being finished and shipped. The first of the limited editions should be arriving to us in about one month and the rest should be in DAP's warehouse system soon enough.

For those of you who do not know the details of the limited edition sets, the info is below. This is actually how we will be able to continue the series as the revenue from the trade edition doesn't even come close to paying for the next four titles in the series. I would suggest you reserve a set first by sending an email to info@errataeditions.com with your name, mailing address and email address. I would prefer to accept payments AFTER we have received the books and made sure they are fit and ready for shipping.

Books on Books #1-4: Limited Edition Set:

In addition to the trade edition of the Books on Books series, we are offering Limited Edition sets which include the first four titles sold directly through Errata Editions. These Limited Edition books feature a beautiful reproduction tipped into the cloth cover of each book. Besides owning a more elegant version of each in the series, the advantage to purchasing a Limited Edition set is the assurance that you will receive these special editions of the Books on Books series as soon as they are off the press and months before the regular edition is distributed.

The Limited Edition sets are due to start shipping in early December.

Limited Edition sets are priced at $200.00 USD (plus shipping) which works out to only being $10.00 more per book than the regular trade edition. Please note that these special editions will not be sold as individual books, they are only available as a set. For Paypal payments and credit cards please use the "Add to Cart" button on the Errata Editions website (www.errataeditions.com click on the SHOP page). Check or money order payments (including shipping and New York State sales tax if applicable) payable to Errata Editions can be sent to: Errata Editions, 526 West 26th Street, #507, New York, NY 10001.

Shipping is provided via well-packed Flat Rate Priority Box for all locations. This is the least expensive yet fastest delivery for a majority of destinations. Destinations within the United States add $10.00 per Limited Edition set. For Canada and Mexico add $23.95 per set. For all other countries add $38.95 per set. Priority mail shipping speeds vary according to destination. Within the United States 3-5 business days for delivery is average. Other countries 1-2 weeks for delivery is average.

Errata Editions at Schaden's booth at Paris Photo

I am also happy to announce that the series will be making its debut at Paris Photo at the booth of Markus Schaden from November 13th to the 16th. The books will be on his table and those of you who attend will be able to take a look at sets of both editions. Unfortunately we will not have books for sale but I will be there taking reservations for the limited edition in person. Stop by and say hello. I will also be doing a bit of blogging from there since Paris Photo is known to be as much a "book" event as a "gallery and prints" event.

Also, on the Paris Photo opening night of November 13th (which happens to be my 40th birthday) we will be hosting a small book signing with Sophie Ristelhueber at Schaden's booth from 5-6pm. We will have a small supply of advance copies of Books on Books #3: Fait on hand for purchase and signing. Supplies are very limited so I would advise to show up early if you would like to purchase a book.

Post-Printing Miscellaneous (continued from On-Press Day 5)

Since I have returned I have been dealing with many aspects of producing a book overseas that young book-makers will need to be aware of and I thought it would be informative to describe a part of the post printing wrap up.

First and foremost, if you print your book out of the country you will need to navigate the daunting procedure of getting your books shipped to their final destination. There are a few different ways to do this and many different people involved in doing so. If you have a distributor, they can easily guide you through the process but just so you know, my initial talks with C+C in China were a bit confusing. Shipping, customs, etc, has its own language and is full of terms like: EXW, FCA, FAS, CFR, CIF, DDP, DES, FIS and many, many more. To the uninitiated...it is a foreign language. As soon as I returned I made an appointment at DAP to talk with their inventory manager and he walked me through the whole procedure.

Often when you pitch your specs to the printer to get a cost of printing and binding quote, they will specify the added costs involved in shipping. Our original quote gave an option of shipping that is called CIF, which means Cost, Insurance and Freight. This is the added cost per book, to get them packed, insured and shipped to the port of your choice. This clears the customs at both ports. These costs are paid by you and you are then responsible for arranging the pick up of your books by courier from the port and transporting them to their final destination at your distributor's warehouse (or the vast amounts of space under your bed, in all of your closets, and in the worst case scenario, in the garage). If you are storing the books personally, as I understand it, in some cases, the driver who arrives at your destination also will not touch the cargo, meaning you need to show up with a pallete jack and unload the contents yourself. Otherwise they will send along another person with the jack to do that for you, of course, at your expense. Ask in advance and be clear of every detail.

If you use a distributor, make sure the printer is informed of any particular packing and labeling instructions that your distributor requires. These are usually things like pallete type, packing and stacking specifics and how the boxes are labeled. If these instructions are not followed then usually the distributor will repack and relabel your book boxes and then charge you for the expense of doing so.

The other most common shipping choice is DDP (Direct Duty Paid) or "door to door," (sometimes also referred to as FIS) in which the carrier arranges everything from providing the customs clearance agent to the overland freighting directly to their final destination including unloading the palletes. This has the convenience of not having to worry once you agree but, of course, this all costs more. Depending on your book size and the amount of the print run, it can add up to a decent additional charge you should be aware of when calculating your final costs. Our shipment, in that it is four different books, is pretty big considering.

It is a common practice, like getting quotes from printers, to pitch the specs to a few couriers for quotes and see the best offers. One last note: Insurance on your shipments is optional. Like most things, you can proceed uninsured, but keep in mind that in the rare case that your ship goes down, the freight container falls off the boat, or the container just gets doused with sea-water and ruins the contents (ask your courier to prepare the container contents for sea voyage) -- you've just eaten tens of thousands of dollars in expense. In a word -- INSURE. Probably nothing will happen but, just like the lottery -- Hey, you never know.

The Printed Picture by Richard Benson

Today we are so accustomed to seeing printed imagery on every available surface that it might be hard to imagine a time when mechanical reproduction did not exist. Apart from text reproduction through movable type and the like, the first images reproduced in multiple copies were from woodblock prints in the fifteenth century. It is arguable that the advancement in technologies of reproduction are the most valuable contributions to communication since the development of language itself.

Take for instance an example that dates back as far as the first century where Greek botanists understood the need for visual statements to make their verbal statements intelligible. Problem being that there were no means available to reproduce exact copies of images so there was distortion from image to image caused by the hand of the copyists. The poor results caused the botanists abandoned images for words alone but those descriptions could not suffice in making the plants recognizable to other botanists, especially ones from other regions. In short, there was a complete breakdown of scientific analysis due to the absence of repeatable pictures.

Much of the art I have experienced has been by way of reproductions. I have said before that out of all of the arts, photography is the most suited to the printed form - thus, why I covet books so much. I would actually argue that with very few exceptions, we absorb more from a photograph when we look one in a book than when we are facing one on a museum wall. Whether it be the power dynamic of a museum where one navigates art among museum guards and in wealthy institutions that "tell" you this is important whether you respond to it or not.

Books are as John Gossage describes, a "lap medium." You operate a book with an intimacy and at your own pace (in the comfort of your own environment). The pages act as natural breaks to where, in a museum, seeing the next photograph on the wall out of the corner of your eye, might encourage you to move through an exhibition faster than you normally would. It is said that on average a person spends about 3 seconds in front of any work of art before moving on. Whether that is due to crowds or the attitude of somewhat unwelcoming galleries, we are being influenced. Books provide a personal comfort zone that allows a more direct experience. Go to museums and galleries for sculpture and paintings.

In the celebration of printed matter, the Museum of Modern Art has just launched an exhibition and book entitled The Printed Picture by the former Dean of the Yale Art School and photographic printing guru Richard Benson.

Over the years, discussion to the importance and interpretation of printing techniques is not new, one can point directly to William M. Ivins' Prints and Visual Communication (to which I owe the example of the Greek botanists) as a prime source, but Benson's text traces the history of printmaking through very accessible texts set alongside a rich array of printed material from his personal collection. Where the Ivins text is first rate, the examples offered through illustrations are basic and the details limited to black and white. Benson's The Printed Picture is a flush with enlarged details and full color illustrations that are as beautifully printed as the originals.

In each chapter, different techniques are described leading up to and through the evolution of modern photographic reproduction. For those interested in such techniques this book is as valuable a text as you will find. Benson tested these waters before with the book and exhibition from the Yale gallery in New Haven, The Physical Print (see 5B4 here). As he did in that book, he describes each process here using well known images from photographers but it is the examples of more commonplace ephemera that provide the richer understanding and deeper interest for me -- seed catalog illustrations, a section of a piano roll, punch cards, advertisements and even a DHL bar-coded delivery sticker on cardboard all find their way into his collection.

Admittedly after having just spent several days on-press overseeing the printing of the first titles in my own book series, I am the captive audience for the subject of this book. At its most basic level, it is about the pleasure of the printed page and the microscopic dots that spur that pleasure. Those dots and their structures are the various dialects of language that visual artists use. What could be a more fascinating subject for anyone interested in art books?

Sonne, Mond und Sterne by Peter Fischli and David Weiss

Seeing as North America's rampant unregulated free market-style of capitalism is collapsing in on itself, Fischili and Weiss' Sonne, Mond und Sterne (Sun, Moon and Stars) may serve as exhibit A when we finally step back and sift through the wreckage.

Sonne, Mond und Sterne is an 800 page artist book comprised of hundreds of magazine advertisements arranged loosely into a narrative of 20th and 21st century temptations. Unrelenting in its scale, their barrage approach is perfect for a subject as obnoxious as the continual bombardment we face to advertising. Originally conceived as a corporate annual report from Ringier AG for 2007, this volume was edited by Beatrix Ruf of the Kunsthalle Zurich.

I take this as proof of a society gone mad but I imagine Fischili and Weiss are too smart for such a simplistic reading. Their's seems to be an art of embracing the nature of the societies we have made, and I could guess that this collection is their scrapbook of pleasurable "ready-mades" that for them induce more of a wide grin than a grimace of horror. Deadly sins such as gluttony and greed can be both disgusting and desirable after all.

Sonne, Mond und Sterne is paperback and the size feels like a super heavy phone book. There are no accompanying texts or explanations of what it is or why it exists. It was published by JRP/Ringier of Zurich.

The promise of fulfilling needs (and creating new ones) is what advertising does best -- offering the idea of a more manageable life where convenience is a given and happiness is available right off the shelf. In short, promising the Sun, Moon and Stars at a good price.

A New History of Photography by Ken Schles

"Monkey see, Monkey do, everything I say sticks twice on you."

At the School of Visual Arts, where I was a photo major in the late '80s, I was required to attend a history of photography class taught by William Broecker (1932-2007), the distinguished William Henry Jackson scholar. By the time the class would begin at ten in the morning my sugar high from breakfast would be long gone and Bill's steady soothing voice would lull me into a deep sleep. If I learned anything in his class it was through REM and the two books he assigned, Beaumont Newhall's A History of Photography (MoMA 1982) and Naomi Rosenblum's A World History of Photography (1st edition 1984). The Newhall was still in pristine shape by year's end, while the spine on the Rosenblum was ready to call it quits.

Admittedly, the illustrations in both took precedent over the texts and I would flip those pages lingering over certain images that would stay with me as I ventured out into the world in pursuit of my own work. Those influences are hard to shake - if that's ever completely possible. Instead they served to inspire and challenge, blending and shaping my own interests. After digesting certain descriptions or illusions of human behavior as seen in the best of Winogrand or Levitt, it was inevitable that those would stay on my radar of what was possible to commit onto film. Influence is poisonous and shaping at the same time. Many photographers will go to great lengths to distance themselves (at least in their statements) from being perceived as following too closely in the footsteps of another no matter what the work actually reveals.

Using Beaumont Newhall's Photography: A Short Critical History as a model, Ken Schles has created his own timeline with A New History of Photography - a limited edition book published under Markus Schaden's imprint White Press.

Schles' "new history" includes the likes of August Sander, William Henry Fox Talbot, William Klein, Bruce Davidson, Helen Levitt, Joel Peter Witkin, Man Ray, Robert Capa, Bill Brandt, William Eggleston, Diane Arbus, Michael Schmidt, Berenice Abbott, Paul Outerbridge, Frederick Sommer, Julia Margaret Cameron and around 90 others. The difference is that all of the images were actually made by Schles himself.

Initially asked by Markus Schaden to create a new work based on a book for a show called Marks of Honor, Schles revisited over thirty years worth of his images and assembled 106 images where he seemed to be directly channeling photographers of the past. Subtitled, The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads, Schles explores the basic nature of the human being as sponge.

Based on what I have written so far, this book might seem to be an easy concept to wrap ones mind around...that is, until the viewer sees that at no point does Schles identify the original image-maker he was channeling. The result of which places the steering wheel of this "new history" into the hands of the viewer.



Some are obvious, Schles' Outerbridge and Klein have direct connections to the original but most others blur image-makers into sub-divisions of influence amongst themselves. This all, of course, relies on the viewer's breadth of knowledge to either expand or contract the history itself.

In the first fifty pages of A New History of Photography, Schles writes at length an exhaustive look at all aspects of influence and provides a mind-bendingly complex (and well footnoted) understanding of his medium and practice. Smart and beautifully written, Schles seems to be channelling the great writers on the medium as well. Unlike the Newhall title, there is little hierarchy here between the words an images -- both hold my attention in equal measure.

The construction of each copy was done by hand and is more of an artist book than anything else. The printing actually utilizes a print-on-demand technology that has no evidence of being so at all. On heavyweight paper, the reproductions are very impressive. Whether black and white or color they read as offset printed images -- I was frankly shocked when I was told that this was print-on-demand.

But the fine printing is only one aspect, the book is finished with binding and casing done with an elegant rounded back binding (using three folio signatures that allow the book to open very flat) and hardcovers with debossed titles. The typography of the 50+ pages of essays is beautifully realized complete with stocked columns of footnotes. The finishing touch is the enclosure of a dustjacket, printed to look like a weathered copy of Newhall. My only criticism would be that the type choice for the individual captions is a bit big and clunky.

A New History of Photography by Ken Schles has been published in an edition limited to 350 signed and numbered copies. The production costs of the hand construction obviously makes this a somewhat expensive title retailing for around 198 euros. I hope they will be able to produce a more affordable version at some point because A New History of Photography: The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads is sure to rank high on my list of the Best Photobooks of 2008.

www.schaden.com

Christie's William Eggleston Auction Catalog

For those of you who may want to pull your money from failing banks, soon you will have the option to tie all of your savings up into William Eggleston prints. On Monday October 13th, Christie's will hold an auction dedicated entirely to the Eggleston prints currently in the Bruce and Nancy Berman collection. A handsome catalog presenting the lots is now available.

Much like the catalogs dedicated to the Robert Frank sale a few months back and the couple recently auctioning Diane Arbus prints, these are more like mini monographs than a typical catalog. This one is over 90 pages worth of images that must run into the hundreds - several of which I hadn't seen before. Most of these are attributed to a series called Dust Bells Volumes I & II. It is an amazing collection of a wide variety of work.

Through a series of foldouts, the lots are presented with estimates - some reaching astronomical figures as might be expected from the rise in popularity of Eggleston. Most interestingly of which are the five Los Alamos portfolios which include 75 dye transfer prints and valued at $350,000-550,000.



My personal favorite Eggleston image -- Sumner, Mississippi, 1972 -- which describes two men, one white one black, standing in a wood near a white car is estimated to set me back $50,000-70,000 for a dye transfer printed in 1999.

Lot 113 offers an interesting sister image to his famous red ceiling photograph -- describing another light bulb backed by a ceiling of badly warped plywood. Both were taken the same year, 1973. This one is valued at a modest $8,000-12,000.

There is no chance of my participating but I may go to watch to see if there is any sign of the recent economic rollercoaster. There certainly weren't any signs during the last rare photobook auction but then again, the world has drawn a little closer to the apocalypse since then.

Christie's William Eggleston Auction

Ward 81 by Mary Ellen Mark

The Oregon State Hospital is getting a lot of attention due to recent reports of a plan to demolish and build a new facility. The hospital made famous by the Milos Foreman adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is also the subject of two recent photobooks as well -- Ward 81 by Mary Ellen Mark and Library of Dust by David Maisel.

Recently the publisher Damiani released a new edition of Mark's 1979 book Ward 81. Introduced to the hospital in 1974 by the film director Milos Foreman who invited Mark to photograph on the set of Cuckoo's Nest, she continued to photograph the women's ward #81 as her first self-assigned project. As Mark relates, the writer Karen Jacobs and she slept in locked cells in a deserted ward next to #81 for six weeks. The resulting 86 photographs describe the daily routines and general malaise of the inmates.

Earlier this year I found a copy of the original Simon and Schuster hardcover of Ward 81 in very fine condition and on a bit of an impulse I bought it for $100.00. In comparison to this new edition there are only a few noticeable differences. First, the trim size is slightly larger with the newer version -- oddly by only about 1/2 an inch on both dimensions. The sequence of photographs is the same although two images that appear at a smaller size in the original appear larger here. There is also a noticeable difference in the handling of the typography. This version is much cleaner with fewer "orphans" at the line breaks.



The reproductions of the newer are far more open and render much more detail than the original, also resulting in a huge contrast difference between the two. Normally I would enjoy such an improvement but the emotional tone between the two seems remarkably different. At the risk of cliche, the harder contrast of the original gives a stronger sense of anxiety -- the newer version seems a bit gray and dull comparatively.



At the end of the sequence in this new version, Mark has added ten previously unpublished images that were mounted to cards and used as reference by her printed Richard Gordon. In my opinion, with the exception of two or three of the images, nothing new is added by their presence as most seem to be variants of images that appeared in the original sequence.

After spending some time with these two versions I have come to feel that Ward 81 is a bit thin on the whole. The photographs become repetitive and many of the portraits are less than compelling because of their inability to lend more than a superficial view of mental illness. Grimacing faces and moments of depressed solitude are expected and already ingrained in our preconceptions about mental illness - it is only when some of the comaraderie between the women emerges in a few pictures that we start to enter new and unexpected territory.

David Maisel's Library of Dust to come soon...

Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State by Steven Heller

In the summer of 1921, a newly designed flag for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei appeared, 'its effect at that time was something akin to a blazing torch.' The design featured a brilliant red flag with a shocking white disk and a black swastika sitting in the middle.

Although formerly a sign of good luck and prosperity -- swastikas were found in many cultures including from Troy, in Etruscan craftworks, Corinthian coins, even on the WW I uniforms of the 45th American Infantry among hundreds of other examples -- it would forever be tarnished as a symbol of having anything to do with goodness. Its horrific appropriation by the Nazis would essentially erase and rewrite its former history to all in the Western world.

This attention to symbols and design created the first intense use of image "branding" within a totalitarian state. Germany, under the failed artist Adolph Hitler, was subjected to an overwhelming experiment in using graphic identity techniques -- logos, trademarks, images -- to trigger instant recognition of the ideals being put forth by his leadership. As Aldous Huxley wrote in 1958, "Twenty years before Madison Avenue embarked upon 'Motivational Research,' Hitler was systematically exploring and exploiting the secret fears and hopes, the cravings, anxieties and frustrations of the German masses."

In his new book Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State, the extremely prolific writer and graphic designer Steven Heller explores these modern methods of manipulating public opinion through design.

Iron Fists examines four of the most significant experiments in the selling of a totalitarian message; Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Communists and Communist China. Profusely illustrated it focuses on material found in posters, magazines, books as well as their individual components in the use of typefaces, color, slogans, and logos. For those fascinated with graphic design this book is a must although it may sit uncomfortably on the coffee table next to much less emotionally jarring works.

Of course for me, the Soviet approach and utopian visions of El Lissitzky and Rodchenko are always a fascinating read, but the chapters in Iron Fists on Fascist Italy and the Chinese cultural revolution drew more attention from me this time. Where, however is the chapter on Japan? I'd have thought that would be a given.

Heller is a fine guide through this material and the examples of design he presents are first rate. Some of the most disturbing examples could be found in his inclusion of anti-Semitic children's book illustrations that were designed to shape the most impressionable minds.

The production values of Iron Fists are very high -- the printing is beautiful and the acetate cover is a fine addition to this volume. That said, those qualities make this is a pricey book -- retailing at $90.00. Iron Fists is published by Phaidon.