Correspondences
Heinz Peter Knes
Published by Is-Land, Aubervilliers, 2023, 128 pp. (b/w ill.), 12.5 × 19.5 cm, English
Price: €15

For thirty years, Heinz Peter Knes has developed a large body of work, focusing on photographic-documentary practice that seeks to engage image with society. Reflecting on the multiple “correspondences”, influences and interactions at the heart of his artistic work, we travel with him through the five chapters of this book, crossing paths with Josef Winkler, Hervé Guibert, Pasolini, Moyra Davey, Julie Ault, Jean-Luc Moulène, Danh Vo, Artaud and many others. Creating a new language, a sort of echo, as sensitive experience, which in a way dematerialize our perceptions, but enable “to gather” them.

#2023 #antoninartaud #danhvo #heinzpeterknes #herveguibert #jeanlucmoulene #josefwinkler #julieault #moyradavey #photography #pierpaolopasolini
Gėlės
Algirdas Šeškus
Published by Biel Books, New York, 2018, 24 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 24 × 30 cm, English / Spanish / Lithuanian
Price: €28

Gėlės, flowers in Lithuanian, features an extremely rare series of pictures taken by photographer Algirdas Šeškus in the 1980s. The series is comprised of ten portraits of flowers originally commissioned as decor for an institutional building in the then Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. Yet, decoration wasn’t their only purpose. In reality, the flowers were intended to lift the spirit of the workers, making them happier and more productive. Expectations that Šeškus’ images were unable to fulfill. Not finding them encouraging enough, the authorities in charge deemed the photographs unfit for the task and rejected them. And that’s how they ended up forgotten under the photographer’s couch, where they remained for the last 40 years, until now. Eventually, it is due to their quiet, dramatic character that these photographs outlived their socialist duty and reached our days. Never exhibited or published before, this book presents the complete series of rejected flowers, along with a brief account of the episode written by Šeškus. Sorrowful, yet strikingly erotic, these images ultimately belong to today: a time unfit for the uplifting.

Editied and designed by Gabriel Pericàs.

#2018 #algirdasseskus #gabrielpericas #photography
Akebia
Jochen Lempert
Published by Keijiban, Kanazawa, 2023, offset print (b/w ill.), 21 × 28.8 cm, English
Price: €150

Edition of 100 copies numbered and signed by the artist on a certificate, plus 13 artist’s proofs.

As the Latinization of the Japanese name akebi, “akebia” designates fives species of plants native to East Asia. These are climbing evergreen shrubs that have been used in many ways (decoration, medicine, craft), including for the consumption of its sweet, white fruit. Delicately placed at the center of the composition, the leaf appears in this work as in an herbarium, its familiar but inexhaustible form offered to the viewers for their contemplation. But a closer examination reveals a constellation of water droplets on the surface, as well as irregular edges – and we finally understand that the leaf is a photographic cut-out. Just for a moment, we mistook the reproduction for its original. What appeared to be a clear reference to the standards of scientific, botanical representation drifts off towards another domain.

#2023 #artistedition #jochenlempert #keijiban #photography
Photo Book(s)
Daan van Golden
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2013, 412 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 24 × 32 cm, English
Price: €50

Daan van Golden Photo Book(s) reproduces the photo pages of Van Golden’s earlier books (most of which have long been out of print), as well as two little known photo essays, in their entirety.

The reproduction of preexisting material, the insistent adherence to a set of core elements, gestures and images, the conviction that creating different juxtapositions and interactions between those same elements yields new readings and meaning: these are the hallmark of van Golden’s work, and here for the first time they serve as the organising principle for a book, one whose patient rhythm creates the space for the logic of a practice to establish its sensible presence.

#2013 #daanvangolden #photography #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Sunflowers
Gen Kay
Published by the artist, Melbourne, 2021, 24 pages (b/w ill.), 22 × 29 cm, English
Price: €27

Sunflowers collates seventeen photographs by Gen Kay, taken in her makeshift home studio, which intimately observe and document the natural arc of the sunflower; one moment bold and brilliant, the next reticent and retreating. These photographs invite the viewer to reflect on these iterations and recognise nature’s arresting ability to capture human emotion with nuance. Both a visual metaphor of the transformative times we have endured and an ode to the power of a classical still life image, Sunflowers seeks to trace the dynamic melodies that lie within us all. Limited edition of 100. Hand numbered and signed.

#2021 #genkay #photography
Feelers
Alexis Hunter
Published by Unbidden Tongues, Rotterdam & Kunstverein München, München, 2023, 24 pages with postcard insert (b/w ill.), 22 × 11 cm, English
Price: €7

Unbidden Tongues #8: Feelers brings together three photographic series by artist and activist Alexis Hunter. In a storyboard-like fashion, her ‘photo narrative sequences’ forensically detail her manhandling of artefacts of patriarchal oppression through the caressing touch of an array of characters: the Marxist wife, an interventionist secretary and a manicured mechanic. Born in New Zealand, Hunter moved to the United Kingdom in 1972 where, at the age of twenty-four, she joined the Women’s Workshop of the Artists Union and invested devotedly in feminist organising alongside her artistic practice.

#2023 #alexishunter #isabellesully #photography #unbiddentongues