Announcing the Winners of the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards 2014

From Paris Photo, Aperture announces the winners of the 2014 PhotoBook Awards.

Paris, November 14, 2014—Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation are pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 edition of the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards, celebrating the book’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography. Hidden Islam by Nicoló Degiorgis is the winner of $10,000 in the First PhotoBook category. The selection for this year’s new category, Photography Catalogue of the Year, is the separately published, matched set of catalogues Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness and Christopher Williams: Printed in Germany by Christopher Williams, while Imaginary Club by Oliver Sieber is the winner of PhotoBook of the Year. A special mention in that category goes to Vytautas V. Stanionis’s Photographs for Documents.

A jury in Paris selected this year’s winners: Rahaab Allana, curator at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts; Quentin Bajac, Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator at the Museum of Modern Art; Cléo Charuet, designer and director; Sebastian Hau, curator; and Pierre Hourquet, gallerist, publisher, and designer, who replaced Urs Stahel due to a delay in Mr. Stahel’s schedule.

The initial short-list selection was made by Julien Frydman, director of Paris Photo; Todd Hido, photographer and photobook maker; Lesley A. Martin, publisher of the Aperture Foundation book program and of The PhotoBook Review; Mutsuko Ota, editorial director of IMA magazine; and Anne Wilkes Tucker, photography curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

“Overall, it was more complicated than I thought,” says Cléo Charuet. “It was a hard task to judge, as it is a hard task to make a book: understanding the work of a photographer, understanding how to make a book attractive but well-suited to the subject.”

Winner of First PhotoBook 2014:
Nicoló Degiorgis, Hidden Islam

“This volume condenses years of research and interaction with members of Muslim communities in northern Italy. It is a sincere book that attempts to bridge local conditions in Italy to a larger European context—and a very strong example of attention to detail and overall concept in today’s independent bookmaking.”—Sebastian Hau

Winner of Photography Catalogue of the Year 2014:
Christopher Williams, Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness and Christopher Williams: Printed in Germany

“This is a super pure, extremely well-done set of books: the use of bright colors, the perfect selection of papers, the perfect economy and rhythm. It’s very appropriate to what’s happening right now in terms of both design and photography. The book is a perfect response to the material.”—Cléo Charuet

Winner of PhotoBook of the Year 2014:
Oliver Sieber, Imaginary Club 

From a range of titles that included both emerging artists and contemporary masters competing for the PhotoBook of the Year prize, the jury selected Oliver Sieber’s Imaginary Club as an extremely well-crafted final manifestation of a photographer’s personal, in-depth project.

Special Mention:
Vytautas V. Stanionis, Photographs for Documents


Photographs for Documents tells me that these are not just documents; they are lives that are shared on the page. The page becomes a stage. . . . The fragility and simplicity, the humility of the materials themselves, are also pivotal to the overall result.”—Rahaab Allana

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The short list is on view in the Publishers section of Paris Photo at the Grand Palais in Paris until November 16, 2014. The exhibition will then travel to the IMA Concept Store in Tokyo from December 9, 2014 to January 18, 2015, and New York’s Aperture Gallery from December 13 to January 29, 2015, followed by exhibitions in 2015 at Photobook Melbourne, Australia, and the Month of Photography Los Angeles.

The short-listed books are also profiled in issue 007 of The Photobook Review, Aperture’s biannual publication dedicated to the consideration of the photobook. The PhotoBook Review is available for free at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore in New York and mailed to all Aperture magazine subscribers.

See the entire PhotoBook Awards 2014 short list.