Issue #017 - Fall 2019
The PhotoBook Review Issue 017
Guest edited by Carmen Winant, whose creative practice involves “creation and transformation, an Ouroborus in which printed material is both created and destroyed.” Her photobooks, such as Body Index (2020), and My Birth (2018), have been informed by her deeply held commitment to feminism.
Featured Content
Issue Details
In this issue, Guest Editor Carmen Winant explores the ways the printed page has functioned as an autonomous and radical site of artistic expression—in particular, for artists with a feminist agenda. Posing the question “What is a feminist photobook?” she examines how feminists—artists, activists, and human beings—have used the form to meet their needs, and what is already inherently feminist. A group of writers, curators, and artists expands this notion with spotlights on works that encompass a wide range of printed matter, including Yxta Maya Murray on Laura Aguilar’s unpublished letters, Johanna Fateman on Ramdasha Bikceem’s riot grrrl zines of the 1990s, and Drew Sawyer on Jo Spence’s Putting Myself in the Picture. Multidisciplinary artist Sable Elyse Smith speaks with poet Simone White about bookmaking, hierarchy in the art world, and more. Designer Sara Duell contributes a piece titled “Feminist Design as a Method, Not Aesthetics”; and Agnès Sire, Diane Dufour, and Josef Koudelka, among others, memorialize publisher Xavier Barral. Issue 017 also presents the eighth year of books shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.
Table Of Contents
Features and Columns
Publisher Profile
In Remembrance: Xavier Barral
Featuring contributions by the Éditions Xavier Barral Team, Diane Dufour, Martin Parr, Josef Koudelka, Agnés Sire, and Terri Weifenbach
Editors’ NoteBrendan Embser and Lesley A. Martin in conversation with Guest Editor Carmen Winant
Design Spotlight: Feminist Design as a Method, Not AestheticsSara Duell
The Printed Page as Feminist Space
Introduction by Carmen Winant
Contributions by Jenni Crain, Sara Cwynar, Johanna Fateman, Laura Guy, Michiko Kasahara, Justine Kurland, Yxta Maya Murray, Mariela Sancari, and Drew Sawyer
Sable Elyse Smith
A conversation with Simone White
Centerfold
Carmen Winant
The 2019 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards Shortlist
With Amanda Maddox, Lesley A. Martin, Joanna Milter, Drew Sawyer, and Christoph Wiesner
Reviews
Tupac Biggie
Stephen Hilger on Dana Lixenberg
Inventions 1915–1938, from the Gas Mask to the Washing Machine
Sara Knelman on Luce Lebart, ed.
Moyra Davey
Jennifer Blessing
Patria o Muerte
Lyle Rexer on Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo
April Dawn Alison
Glen Helfand
Whit Kind Regrets Pasenau
Nina Strand on Maria Pasenau
Everyone Is Present: Essays on Photography, Memory and Family
Oluremi C. Onabanjo on Terry Kurgan
Why Photo Magazines?
A conversation with Vince Aletti and Ivan Vartanian
Back Issues
The PhotoBook Review is now part of Aperture magazine
The PhotoBook Review is now published within the pages of every issue of Aperture magazine. Subscribe to Aperture to receive thoughtful book reviews, in-depth opinion pieces, artists’ selections, publisher spotlights, and interviews with photographers, book collectors, designers, and more.
The PhotoBook Review Issue 020
Clément Chéroux, Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, helms issue 020 of The PhotoBook Review on the occasion of the publication’s tenth anniversary.
The PhotoBook Review Issue 019
In this issue, The PhotoBook Review celebrates the fine art of talking about books and what goes into their making. Offset artist Dayanita Singh has stated, “A book is a conversation with a stranger in the future.” This issue breaks the ice with a series of book makers and book aficionados in dialogue with one...
The PhotoBook Review Issue 018
Guest Editor Deborah Willis leads a survey of photobooks by Black artists, creating the scaffolding for future research and study. In her own studies and published works, Willis has laid the groundwork for the history of Black photographers as they established “a visual language of ‘testifying’ about their individual and collective experiences.”
The PhotoBook Review Issue 016
Guest edited by Federica Chiocchetti, a writer, curator, editor, and lecturer specializing in photography, fictions, and words. Through her on- and offline platform The Photocaptionist, she collaborates with institutions such as The Photographers’ Gallery, Fotomuseum Winterthur, and Foam.
The PhotoBook Review Issue 015
Guest edited by David Campany, writer, curator, photographer, and educator, one of the most prolific critics on modern and contemporary photography in the field today. In early 2020, he was appointed the managing director of programs at the International Center of Photography, New York.
The PhotoBook Review Issue 014
Guest edited by Deirdre Donohue, who brings her bibliographic and bibliophilic knowledge to this issue. Donohue is assistant director of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library. Formerly, she was the Stephanie Shuman Director of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections at the International Center...
The PhotoBook Review Issue 013
Issue 013 was assembled by Lesley A. Martin, publisher of The PhotoBook Review and creative director at Aperture Foundation.
The PhotoBook Review Issue 012
Guest edited by Daria Tuminas, an independent scholar, writer, and curator specializing in the contemporary photobook. She currently works with Fotodok in the Netherlands, and is the former head of the Unseen Book Market and Unseen Dummy Awards.
The PhotoBook Review Issue 011
Guest edited by Denise Wolff, senior editor at Aperture. She has spearheaded the commission of Aperture’s education-oriented titles, such as The Photographer’s Playbook (2014) and The Photography Workshop Series (2014–ongoing), in addition to children’s books by authors like Joel Meyerowitz, Jason Fulford, and Susan Meiselas.