On the 8th of March the Rotterdam-based Nederlands Fotomuseum opened Viviane Sassen’s exceptional photographic project titled UMBRA. We have been a fan of Sassen's work for a long time now and love this particular collaboration with the Dutch museum. Especially for the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Sassen has made a new series of works that focus on the play of light and shadow, a very characteristic element that runs through all of her work. Sassen supplements this series with previously unseen images from her archives. UMBRA, which translates to 'shadow' in Latin, presents Sassen’s autonomous work in a kaleidoscopic exhibition in which shadow is often a metaphor for the human psyche. [ Continue reading ]
Pawel Bownik’s 'Disassembly', published by newcomer Mundin, is an artist’s book in which a photographic project has been brought to the form of a non-standard picture album. The main role here is played by flowers, which Bownik disassembles into parts using DIY tools and then reassembles in possibly unchanged form. For deconstruction purposes the photographer uses glues, adhesive tapes, ropes, precisely measuring the distances between the leaves, noting them in pencil on the leaves themselves and photographing them. The resulting images, informed by the still-life tradition, perfectly imitate and evoke that which has been subjected to a destructive process. Haunting the viewer with their deformed charm, they also create an uncomfortable sense of participating in a strange experiment. Beginning with the cover image and progressing through a series of collages and drawings, the book’s narrative culminates in the middle part and comes to a conclusion with a series of sketches evoking progressively the sense of being the witness of a highly aesthetic, but bizarre scientific experiment. [ Continue reading ]
David Lynch is a man of many talents. Although he is best known for his cinema, over the years he has branched out as far as his own brand of coffee, the production of music, various interior design projects and basically everything that's moldable into his moody enigmatic and subversive aesthetic. His latest form of expression, although he has been doing it throughout his life, was the exhibition and publication of his photographic series called 'The Factory Photographs' at the London-based Photographers' Gallery. The series reveal Lynch's self-confessed love of industry, machinery, man-made objects, and 'people hard at work'. The dark and brooding series of black and white photographs were taken at derelict factories in Germany, Poland, New York and England, among other places. His unique cinematic style is much in evidence in his depictions of labyrinths of passages, detritus and decaying manmade structures slowly being taken over by nature. [ Continue reading ]
We have been a fan of the work of Todd Selby from the moment he stepped into the limelight. His latest work 'Fashionable Selby' is his third collaboration with publisher Abrams books, in which the photographer moves his gaze onto the world of fashion. The book features profiles of today’s most interesting designers, stylists, models, shoemakers and other fascinating figures. The subjects are wonderfully curated; with some very familiar faces and others totally unexpected. Chapters on individual artists bring readers into the utmost inner circle of the artists, and include Selby’s signature photographs and watercolors of not only the artists and their environments, but also the things that inspire them, the materials they use, their creative process, the people who work alongside them, and the final pieces. From the showroom of the incredible Dries van Noten, the studios of Central St. Martins in London to 'techno fashion designer' Iris van Herpen's studio: Selby continues his wonderful documentation of highly inspiring people and their environments in his signature bright aesthetic. [ Continue reading ]
'Ezekiel 36:36' is a beautiful and fascinating series by photographer Nick Ballon, portraying Bolivian Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB), one of the world’s oldest surviving airlines, in an almost surrealistic fashion. Founded in 1925, it has played an important role in every stage of the country’s history. Since its privatisation in 1994, LAB has suffered at the hands of successive administrations, becoming gradually dismantled due to chronic mismanagement and corruption. Currently under threat of closure and with its downed of aircraft slowly crumbling away, this airline continues to survive through the loyalty and faith of its remaining 180 staff. Sensitive to this poignant and transitional time, Ballon has spent six months recording the present day story of LAB. Due to the circumstances of the airline and the angles chosen by Ballon the photographs suck the viewer in, reminding of the cinema of David Lynch or the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia. [ Continue reading ]
The Latvian photographer Inta Ruka is famous for her portrait photography. She has portrayed fellow human beings in their daily lives throughout her career, with great honesty and curiosity. The background to her intimate imagery are long conversations she has beforehand with her subjects, helping her to convey "the whole picture." She also complements her photographs with texts; anecdotes, comments, stories from their calls. That way she pushes the idea of the limits of the photograph and what can be included in a photographic work. The text helps to capture the whole picture of the people she meets and portrays. Following Inta Ruka's exhibition 'You and Me' at the Stockholm-based Fotografiska, which took place from the 5th of October until the 8th of December 2013, and in her honor, the book The Bigger Picture: A Photo Book Without Pictures was published. A highly fascinating publication carrying just Inta Ruka texts written for her photographs, without the actual images. The ambition behind this fascinating project is to challenge the reader with the question what the intrinsic qualities of photography are. [ Continue reading ]
In his project '52 Weeks, 52 Cities', developed exclusively for German museum Marta Herford, my brother Iwan Baan takes the spectator on a one-year photographic journey around the world. Always on the lookout for ingenious homes in unexpected places and outstanding construction projects. Süddeutsche Zeitung described the influence of Iwan: “our image of architecture like no other”. He has been working, very successfully, worldwide for architects including Rem Koolhas, Herzog & de Meuron, Toyo Ito or Zaha Hadid. A characteristic of his pictorial language is the engagement with the close relationship between human and architecture, between social use and the various spatial situations. [ Continue reading ]
On the 31st of March a tremendous collection of photographs by famous English photographer Derek Ridgers will be published by Damiani. Taken in the streets, clubs, basements and bars of London between 1978 and 1987, the photographs in the book named 78–87 London Youth show a broad scala of youth cultures caught through Ridgers' lens. The photographer has documented the perennial youth ritual of dressing up and going out since he first picked up a camera in 1971, and has been drawn to virtually every subculture London has produced. His photographs capture punk’s evolution into goth, the skinhead revival and the New Romantic scene, and the eventual emergence of Acid House and the new psychedelia. Ridgers’ work is both from a anthropological viewpoint, as style-wise of the highest standard. Next to the excellent work of the photographer a foreword by John Maybury is featured in the book, who himself was a mainstay of the times the book documents. [ Continue reading ]
We are very thrilled to give another fantastic preview of a feature story by the highly inspiring online platform Jungles in Paris. This story focusses on the environment of the Weddell seals and is an outtake of the beautiful book The Last Ocean by photographer John Weller. Weddell seals live in Antarctica, and unlike other large animals there, like for instance whales, other seals, or penguins, they don't migrate North during the winter. No other mammal on earth lives this far south. They have extraordinary diving abilities, can go as far as 700 meters below the ice in their search for fish, and stay underwater for as long as an hour. [ Continue reading ]
Métier, Small Businesses in London is a lovely book by photographer Laura Braun published through her own Paper Tiger Books, about London-based small-scale independent and specialist businesses and the people who run them. In a time when the high streets of London are taking on a more and more corporate character, this book offers an unusual and interesting perspective on the city and an insight into the working lives of people who strongly identify with their occupation. In total Laura has photographed 26 people and their places of work, accompanied by a short text about each person and business and an afterword by sociologist Dawn Lyon. [ Continue reading ]
Last year in May iconic fashion label Stone Island released this interesting and aesthetically appealing overview of its own history called Stone Island Archivio '982-'012 in association with publisher Silvana Editoriale and art directed by Simon Foxton and Nick Griffiths. In the book the story of the Italian label, founded by Massimo Osti, that reinvented sportswear is told in more than 300 iconographic color images of garments from the Stone Island archives. Making it an interesting examination into the immense archive of the label that includes 20.000 garments and which contains most of the immense wealth of knowledge and experience on which the brand is founded. [ Continue reading ]
After going for a month to India, a few weeks in Patagonia, and a few in Nepal, the idea grew in 24-year-old Ruben Brulat's mind to go for a long and unstopped journey, an aesthetic travel, leaving from Gare de Lyon, Paris. Brulat decided to go East. From Europe to Asia by land only, through Iraq, Iran, onto Afghanistan, Tibet until Indonesia, Japan and Mongolia. Inspired by his first trips, Brulat realised that he wanted to see and share the experience of giving yourself away to nature in a photography-project. Early january 2011 the Frenchman asked the first person to pose naked in a landscape for him to photograph, trying to create a symbiosis with the surroundings. Last September Brulat succeeded in finding funds to release a beautiful self published book of this series of photographs taken all over the world which was named Sharing Paths. [ Continue reading ]
The London-based artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin won the Deutsche Börse photography prize on the 10th of June with their fascinating 2012 book War Primer 2 which was published very limited to only 100 copies by Mack Books. They were presented with the £30,000 award by the film director Mike Figgis at the Photographers' Gallery in London. In the book Broomberg and Chanarin rework Bertolt Brecht's original War Primer from 1955 using internet screenshots and mobile phone pictures to comment on the role of photography in the "war on terror." Beside receiving praise for War Primer 2 this month, the duo also released another extremely fascinating book called The Holy Bible. In the publication the provocateurs have carefully overlaid images from The Archive of Modern Conflict onto each page of the Bible. The duo believes that their selected images are representative of the horror and madness of global catastrophes (Western) society has become insensitive to, due to the filtration of those images by mainstream media. [ Continue reading ]
In the believe that the illustrated books of the past should have a digital life, Mapp Editions was founded in 2011 in London by acclaimed art publisher Michael Mack, antiquarian bookseller and entrepreneur John Koh, and renowned digital designer Jean-Michel Dentand. Now working with international renowned museums, libraries, collections, curators and artists, they already published an extremely beautiful and fascinating list of books which are available on your iPad. Amongst them these rare works on sport in China, originally published for the use of English communities in the ports of Tientsin (Tianjin) and Amoy (Xiamen). They really incite our imagination and love for collecting! [ Continue reading ]
A few weeks back we were invited by Miscellaneous to visit Le Typographe. This lovely company with its tiny storefront and amazing workshop in the back, located at Rue Américaine 67 in Brussels, makes beautiful notebooks, envelopes and cards. Housed in the Elsene area of Brussels one finds their store and atelier connected by a little, lovely well-kept garden. Just as in the maintenance of their garden, in all of their products one can find excellent craft and the highest care for detail. [ Continue reading ]
In Closed Cities published by Kehrer Verlag, Gregor Sailer examines the forms taken by closed cities in Siberia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Chile, Algeria/Western Sahara and Argentina. The term 'closed city' was originally coined for the Soviet Union, where, for various reasons, the existence of numerous towns was long kept secret. Some of them were not officially revealed and added to maps until the beginning of this century. [ Continue reading ]
For my fourth Curated gift I present a signed and numbered edition of: An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds by photographer Luke Stephenson. London-based design studio YES collaborated with the photographer for this project which documents the fascinating (British) culture of show birds.
What attracts me to the book in the first place is it's explicit quality of exposing the wonderful aesthetic of nature. Stephenson succeeded in creating a series of photographs catching the essence of the depicted birds in color and form like it was done in formal portraits of monarchs during previous centuries. The birds are depicted on mono colored backgrounds resulting in a great contrast with the many visible colors and shapes of the birds, creating an overall aesthetic reminiscent of fashion photography. Stephenson made nature into fashion. [ Continue reading ]
Where Chefs Eat is the latest publication on dining by Phaidon. The publication, with an aesthetic reminiscent of commercial printing from the 1950s and '60s, features over four hundred chefs who have given restaurant recommendations in the ultimate insiders' guide. The chefs recommend restaurants in eight categories: breakfast, late night, regular neighbourhood, local favorite, bargain, high end, wish I'd opened, and worth the travel. The book is organised by continent and divided by city, but restaurants are listed in no particular order making the use of the guide somewhat of an surprise act. [ Continue reading ]
powerHouse Books just published Whitewash, a book by LA based photographer Nicholas Alan Cope and his view on LA. Images of the desolate concrete architecture, high in contrast, black and white, bleached by the sun, as a perfect translation of the city's core. [ Continue reading ]
Neue Welt is the new book by Wolfgang Tillmans. Beautiful images of ‘life as Wolfgang sees it’, published by Taschen. [ Continue reading ]
Beautiful photography in this new publication: The Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds. [ Continue reading ]
The third Curated gift I’ve selected is in line with the first two, inspired by my love to travel. Almost a year ago I received a package. It was a little gift from Fabrice, a young man from Nantes, France, who’d started his own business… [ Continue reading ]
'Everything goes right and left if you want it' is the title of the first publication on Sergei Sviatchenko, the good man behind Close Up and Private. The Berlin-based publisher Gestalten released this beautiful book featuring Sviatchenko's modern collages and keen eye on colour. "In the world of contemporary art, Sviatchenko is a provocateur. He draws on and harnesses all of the cultural tides he has experienced in 40 years of image-making. Sviatchenko’s oeuvre spans the known and the unimaginable. It cuts through the boundaries of traditional and contemporary visuals to merge pop culture with politics, personal memory with collective histories, and architecture and science with the logic of dreams." [ Continue reading ]
Recently we were introduced to the New York based Gage + DeSoto, a project in which founder Mike Spriggs combines his profound love (shared by me) of books and cycling. Mike, also a former collaborator with Rapha for the New York Cycle Club, recently opened a small storefront in Brooklyn which is open in the weekends and is doing business online around the clock. Gage + DeSoto has a wonderful bike related collection consisting of magazines, books, notebooks and prints, but also has t-shirts, cycling shirts, cycling hats and helmets and all kinds of accessories which you can use on and with your bike. [ Continue reading ]