The History of the Latin American Photobook

Up close and hands-on with a century of Latin American photobook publishing.

Upwards of 150 photobooks published since 1920 from 11 Latin American countries are on view to the public in Revelaciones. Historia del fotolibro en Latinoamérica at the Ivorypress Space in Madrid (through July 14, 2012).

While publication of the photobook has been prolific in Latin America across these years, its history has gone largely undocumented. This exhibition, which is curated by Horacio Fernández, author of Aperture’s second so-called “book on books,” The Latin American Photobook (2011), the result of a four-year, cross-continental committee effort, offers visitors a hands-on opportunity to examine a unique and comprehensive survey of rich visual publishing. Books are arranged by the following themes: America before America, History and Propaganda, Urban Photography, Photo Essays, Artist’s Book, Photography and Literature and Contemporary Photography.

The publication of The Latin American Photobook, which followed the success of Aperture’s 2009 Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and 1970s, is part of an ongoing effort to support the growing appreciation and connoisseurship of the photobook as an artistic form in it of itself. The text is reviewed by Photo-eye Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, and Memory in Latin America.

Spanish-speakers can find reviews of the exhibition in Madrid on El País.

Revelaciones. Historia del fotolibro en Latinoamérica
Exhibition on view:
Through July 14, 2012

Ivorypress Space
C/Comandante Zorita 48 – 46 28020
Madrid, Spain
+34-91-4490961