Memory grids: Forgetting East Berlin in Krass Clement’s Photobook Venten på i går. Auf Gestern warten (2012)

Memory grids: Forgetting East Berlin in Krass Clement’s Photobook Venten på i går. Auf Gestern warten (2012)In the article, I argue that by means of qualities intrinsic to the medium of the photobook, the renowned Danish photographer Krass Clement (b. 1946) constructs a complex narration, which, on the one hand, seeksmeta-refl ection on the relationships between photography, memory, and the perception of reality, and, on the other, explores the post-GDR condition of Berlin and Germany. Venten på i går. Auf Gestern warten (Danish and German for “Waiting for yesterday”) includes both old and contemporary images, in both colour and black-and-white, but the book is neither (n)ostalgic nor documentary. Rather, I insist that Clement’s project epitomizes memory work and that its guiding principle can be understood through Rosalind Krauss’ concept of the grid. Th e grid is here inseparable from photography’s relation to memory and reality. I explore how the dialectics between remembering and forgetting, inherent to photography, is enacted by the book, and how it foregrounds the opaqueness rather than the transparency of the medium and perception. I also present how the universe constructed by Clement unfolds within the three temporal dimensions suggested in the title of the book: a present (post-ideological) suspension between the future and the past

The epistemic role of intermedial visual artworks: An analysis of the photobooks Palast der Republik and Domesticidades

This paper presents, describes and analyses two photobooks: Palast der Republik and Domesticidades. We claim that, because of their highly iconic features, they can be regarded as epistemic artefacts (models) since they reveal information about their objects, as well as about their own morphological properties. The analysis focuses on (i) the kind of relations the photobooks establish with their respective objects (we claim that it is a mainly-iconic relation) and (ii) on the semiotic couplings that can be found in them – a type of interaction between semiotic resources (such as photographs, maps, written texts, illustrations, among others). We contextualize this analysis in relation to both a semiotic and an intermedial background.Further, we claim that the epistemic role of such artworks is directly related to their material and structural features that constrain the possibilities of manipulation and reasoning upon them. We conclude by presenting some of the information that was revealed by the manipulation of these photobooks, claiming that the semioticartefactual approach to models can be an epistemically interesting conceptual frame to thinking about artistic artefacts

Picturing Distance: Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles Photobooks

Ed Ruscha's photobooks create a deliberate type of low-key provocation the artist has referred to as a type of “Huh?” – a presentation of the American landscape in a book format that makes it very difficult to locate unambiguous cues for meaning or clear affect in the photographs. This essay lays out an extended reading of the notion of “distance” as uniting these photobooks in their physicality, in the ways in which the postwar industrial landscape of Los Angeles is presented to the viewer obliquely, and in the cooled manner of affect that was so influential for later artists

Do Culturally Engaging Reading Materials Matter? An Analysis of Rural Libraries in Burkina Faso

Academics have noted the lack of culturally relevant reading materials in African libraries. Book collections are primarily composed of donated materials from western countries intended for a western, rather than African audience. This research project aimed to gain insight onto children’s reading preferences in the rural Burkina Faso and to learn about the popularity of local photo books that were added in 2009. Quantitative methods examined library book checkout records in three categories of African, French, and local photo books. Additionally the library subscription records were used in order to gain information about the children including age, gender, and ethnicity. Qualitative methods consisted of focus groups with the parents of library users to learn more about reading preferences, and what books and other library resources are considered most useful. Data gathered demonstrated that children’s books with African authors received the most checkouts and that local photo books are becoming increasingly popular. Parents also noted the popularity of African literature and considered them to be useful reading material

Фототипологія як метод відображення формування міського середовища у сучасній фотокнизі

Purpose. To figure out the directions of development and origins of the modern photonbook on the examples dedicated to the effect of the Soviet culture on the formation of the post-Soviet urban environment.Methodology. In the process of research, the following methods were used: art analysis, analysis of theoretical and historical preconditions for the development of the typology of a modern photobook that displays the urban environment; synthesis, generalization and systematization of the received information; methods of induction, deduction and comparative analysis.Results. It is shown that photobooks, dedicated to the influence of Soviet heritage on the formation of urban environment and landscape, continue the traditions established by the Dusseldorf School of Photography with some differences affected by the rise of publishing and design technologies. It is determined, that the characteristic feature of a modern photobook is a wider freedom in the choice of the target objects, angles of view, shots. But the concept of documenting the same or similar objects remains. Minimalism in the design of the indoor unit and cover, concise use of several options for repeating modular grids - the trends that unite the latest published photobooks.Scientific novelty. Typological features and principles of the design of one of the actual directions of the modern photobooks are revealed, which tend to continue the traditions of photographic typology as a form of presenting a photo project. Distinctive features in the formation of the design of such photobooks, associated with the development of modern digital technologies of photography and layout, are defined.Practical significance. A retrospective art analysis of photobooks, dedicated to the reflection of the urban environment, was conducted. The research is an important link in the further study of the history of the development of the photobook, as the implementation of the creative project of the photographer.Мета: з’ясувати напрями розвитку і витоки сучасної соціальної фотокниги на прикладі найкращих зразків, присвячених відображенню наслідків впливу радянської культури на формування пострадянського міського середовища. Методологія. У процесі дослідження застосовувалися методи: мистецтвознавчий аналіз, аналіз теоретичних і історичних передумов розвитку типології сучасної фотокниги, присвяченої відображенню міського середовища; синтез, узагальнення та систематизація отриманої інформації; методи індукції, дедукції та порівняльного аналізу.Результати. Показано, що фотокниги, присвячені відображенню впливу радянської спадщини на формування міського середовища та ландшафту, продовжують традиції, закладені Дюссельдорфською школою фотографії із певними відмінностями під впливом розвитку сучасних технологій та дизайну. Визначено, що характерною особливістю сучасної фотокниги є більш широка свобода у виборі об’єктів фокусування, ракурсів, планів. Але концепція документального зображення тих самих або подібних об’єктів залишається. Мінімалізм у дизайні внутрішнього блоку і обкладинки, лаконічне використання кількох варіантів повторюваних модульних сіток — тенденції, які об’єднують останні опубліковані фотокниги.Наукова новизна. Виявлені типологічні особливості і засади дизайну одного з актуальних напрямів сучасної фотокниги, що продовжує традиції фототипології, як форми подання фотопроєкту. Визначені відмітні особливості у формуванні дизайну таких фотокниг, пов’язані з розвитком сучасних цифрових технологій фотографії та верстки.Практичне значення. Проведено ретроспективний мистецтвознавчий аналіз фотокниг, присвячених відображенню міського середовища. Дослідження є важливою ланкою в подальшому вивченні історії розвитку фотокниги, як реалізації творчого проєкту фотохудожника

Internationale Architektur, a pioneer photobook for the dissemination of the emerging modern architecture

[EN] The aim of this research is to analyse the pioneer architectural photobook, Internationale Architektur (1925), studying the convergence between Gropius ideological approach and Moholy-Nagy s editorial design in order to build a solid message about the emerging modern architecture. By comparing photobooks designed by Moholy-Nagy previously, and taking into account the significant changes made by Gropius for its second edition (1927), it may be easier to understand the importance of dissemination as a modern, specific phenomenon; therefore, today we may see the International Style as a perfect commercial tag for advertising architectural Modernism, started with the launch of the first Bauhausbücher.[ES] Se plantea un análisis del pionero de los fotolibros de arquitectura, Internationale Architektur (1925), estudiando la convergencia entre enfoque ideológico de Gropius y el diseño editorial de Moholy-Nagy para construir un discurso sólido sobre la emergente arquitectura moderna. Mediante la comparación con fotolibros anteriormente diseñados por Moholy-Nagy, y considerando los significativos cambios introducidos por Gropius en su segunda edición (1927), se puede comprender mejor la importancia de la divulgación como fenómeno específicamente moderno; lo cual, hoy, nos permite poder interpretar al International Style como una etiqueta comercial óptima para la propaganda de la arquitectura moderna, iniciada con el lanzamiento del primer Bauhausbücher.Almonacid Canseco, R. (2022). Internationale Architektur, un fotolibro pionero en la divulgación de la emergente arquitectura moderna. EGA Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica. 27(44):86-97. https://doi.org/10.4995/ega.2022.15365OJS8697274