Announcing The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist Selections
Alec Soth, photographer, photobook maker, and publisher, greeted an eager crowd at the New York Art Book Fair this past Friday to announce the thirty outstanding photobooks shortlisted for the 2013 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.
This year’s shortlist selection was made by Vince Aletti, curator, critic, and author who writes photography reviews for the New Yorker; Julien Frydman, director of Paris Photo; Lesley A. Martin, publisher of the Aperture book program and of The PhotoBook Review; Mutsuko Ota, editorial director of IMA magazine; and Barbara Tannenbaum, curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The jury felt that a diversity of approaches and styles were represented in this year’s entries, and they spent over ten hours to reach their final decisions. “Both content and form are inextricably partnered,” in the shortlisted photobooks, said Tannenbaum. “The content supports the form, the form supports the content. The design and all the aspects of the book are matched by the quality of the pictures. Both have to be very high.” Aletti summarized the list by noting, “The final selection offers a strong, international mix of genres, styles, and approaches to the photobook. It also represents a particular attention to the book as an object, in which selection of images, sequence, scale, typography, and materials are all carefully considered.”
The ten shortlisted titles for PhotoBook of the Year are:
Holy Bible
Photographers: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin
Publisher: MACK, London / Archive of Modern Conflict, London
New York Arbor
Photographer: Mitch Epstein
Publisher: Steidl, Göttingen, Germany
Iris Garden
Photographer: William Gedney
Text: John Cage
Publisher: Little Brown Mushroom, Minneapolis
The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890–1950
Photographer: Santu Mofokeng
Publisher: Steidl / The Walther Collection, Göttingen / New York
Surrendered Myself to the Chair of Life
Photographer: Jin Ohashi
Text: Nobuyoshi Araki
Publisher: AKAAKA, Tokyo
A01 [COD.19.1.1.43] — A27 [S | COD.23]
Photographer: Rosângela Rennó
Publisher: RR Edições, Rio de Janeiro
Rasen Kaigan
Photographer: Lieko Shiga
Publisher: AKAAKA, Tokyo
Birds of the West Indies
Photographer: Taryn Simon
Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany
The PIGS
Photographer: Carlos Spottorno
Publisher: Phree and Editorial RM, Madrid
War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath
Photographers: Various
Authors: Anne Wilkes Tucker and Will Michels, with Natalie Zelt
Publisher: Museum of Fine Arts Houston / Yale University Press, New Haven
The twenty shortlisted titles for First PhotoBook are:
World of Details
Photographer: Viktoria Binschtok
Publisher: Distanz, Berlin
A Period of Juvenile Prosperity
Photographer: Mike Brodie
Publisher: Twin Palms Publishers, Santa Fe
Encouble—Paraître
Photographer: Delphine Burtin
Publisher: Self-published
Speaking of Scars
Photographer: Teresa Eng
Publisher: If / Then Books, London
Pools
Photographer: Craig Fineman
Publisher: Stussy / Dashwood Books, New York
The Canaries
Photographer: Thilde Jensen
Publisher: LENA Publications, Truxton, New York
Nine Nameless Mountains
Photographer: Maanantai Collective
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany
Top Secret: Images from the Stasi Archives
Photographer: Simon Menner
Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany
KARMA
Photographer: Óscar Monzón
Publisher: Dalpine, Madrid / RVB Books, Paris
Karczeby
Photographer: Adam Pańczuk
Publisher: Self-published
The Fourth Wall
Photographer: Max Pinckers
Publisher: Self-published
History of the Visit
Photographer: Daniel Reuter
Publisher: Self-published
Silvermine
Photographer: Thomas Sauvin
Publisher: Archive of Modern Conflict, London
Beautiful Pig
Photographer: Ben Schonberger
Publisher: Self-published
Grays the Mountain Sends
Photographer: Bryan Schutmaat
Publisher: Silas Finch Foundation, New York
Down These Mean Streets
Photographer: Will Steacy
Publisher: b. frank books, Zürich
Return to Sender
Photographer: Sipke Visser
Publisher: Self-published
Ad Infinitum
Photographer: Kris Vervaeke
Publisher: Self-published
Dalston Anatomy
Photographer: Lorenzo Vitturi
Publisher: Jibijana Books in association with SPBH Editions, London and Milan
La Montagne Dorée
Photographer: Myriam Ziehli
Publisher: Self-published
—
The selected photobooks will be exhibited at Paris Photo at the Grand Palais and at Aperture Gallery in New York and will tour to other venues, to be determined. They will also be profiled in issue 005 of The PhotoBook Review, Aperture’s biannual publication dedicated to the consideration of the photobook.
A final jury in Paris will select the winners for both prizes, which will be revealed at Paris Photo on November 15, 2013. The winner of First PhotoBook will be awarded $10,000. Immediately preceding the announcement, the fair will host book signings of the shortlisted titles.
PhotoBook Awards Pre-Jury:
Vince Aletti reviews photography exhibitions for the New Yorker and writes a regular column about photo books for Photograph. He was a contributing author to Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century and is the winner of the 2005 Infinity Award in writing from the International Center of Photography. In 2009, Aletti co-curated Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now with Carol Squiers at the ICP and was the curator of This Is Not a Fashion Photograph, among other exhibitions. His most recent book, Rodeo, featuring the work of Bruce of Los Angeles, was published this fall by ACNE Studios.
Barbara Tannenbaum is curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she recently organized DIY: Photographers and Books, an exhibition on print-on-demand photobooks. Previously, she spent twenty-six years as chief curator of the Akron Art Museum, where she organized over eighty exhibitions including the first large-scale exhibition chronicling women’s historic achievements in photography; the first solo museum show of Adam Fuss; and Ralph Eugene Meatyard: An American Visionary. Tannenbaum has edited and authored numerous publications, including Detroit Disassembled by Andrew Moore (2010). She serves on the board of the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation.
Mutsuko Ota is editorial director of IMA magazine. After graduating from Waseda University, she started her career as an editor at Marie Claire. She then worked at several men’s magazines such as Esquire and GQ as a features editor on travel, gastronomy, culture, art, and photography, among other subjects. In addition to collaborating with several magazines as a freelance editor, she has also been involved in the development and production of various art projects, book and catalog editing, and film promotion throughout her career. She became the editorial director of IMA in January 2012.
Since March 2011, Julien Frydman has been director of Paris Photo, the international fair dedicated to photography. In April 2013, he launched Paris Photo Los Angeles at Paramount Pictures Studios. From 2006–2011, Frydman was general director of Magnum Photos Paris, where he was responsible for a team that developed the careers of eighty agency photographers throughout Europe and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to Magnum, he worked in the French Ministry for Culture and National Education and as a consulting director at the TBWA Advertising Group.
Lesley A. Martin is publisher of Aperture Foundation’s book program and of The PhotoBook Review. Her writing on photography has been published in Aperture, American Photo, Stay Flat, and FOAM, among other publications, and she has edited over eighty books of photography, including Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer; Richard Misrach: On the Beach; Penelope Umbrico: Photographs; and Rinko Kawauchi: Ametsuchi.
