Photobooks of 2017: David Solo
Chloe Sells – Flamingo
Continuing to push book design in novel ways that complements the strong work.
Antony Cairns – LDN4
Another successful and evolving step in both his exploration of the cityscape and use of technology related artifacts. I still haven’t figured out how to display these, but I love them.
Alexandre Christiaens – Hunter Grill
One of the best surprises of the year was discovering the work of publisher Origini Edizioni who are successfully innovating in the worlds of book design and image-text – here with travels in the Estonian forest and beyond.
Valentina Abenavoli – Harvest
I still don’t know how to describe the second, and yet more intense, volume of this trilogy on feeling and empathy. Its center is with the text throughout with images seemingly chosen as a sort of background – and with a diary like feel in size and design.
Mandy Barker – Beyond Drifting
Both encapsulating and extending the exhibition, the book (and especially the artist edition – here much more than just “with a print”) takes you from what begins as a historical view of marine biology to a multi-layered and powerful comment on the effects of plastic pollution on the marine environment.
Chrystel Lebas – Field Studies
This book brings together so many elements I respond to – forest landscapes, archives, and image-text and does it originally and very successfully.
Louise Oates – Notes on Hydraulic Fracturing
A seemingly simple pamphlet on fracking, the book seamlessly combines documentation, technical background and studio/performance images into a work both visually
compelling and effective in raising questions about the topic.
Eric Zetterquist – Object Portraits
At first appearing to be simple black & white abstracts, it becomes clear (and the appendix describes clearly) that this is an exploration of the distinctive forms and shapes of Asian ceramics.
Darren Harvey-Regan – Erratics
From desert to studio to plinth to reflections on the the conceptual path and physical journeys through the project this exploration of forms and their making is an intriguing and highly engaging book.
Israel Arino – La gravetat del lloc
Initially opaque, this is a book that continues to grow on me; from the choice of materials – cover and paper that are integral to the idea – to the images and their subtle exploration of the basic sense of place.
Thomas Albdorf – General View
There are never enough images of Yosemite, but really this emerges as one of the more effective and thoughtful explorations of how digital/online images are changing the way we view the world both in person and virtually.
David Solo is a Brooklyn based collector of photography, contemporary Japanese and Chinese art, and especially artist and photo books. He is actively involved with a number of institutions in London and New York as well as individual photobook research and publishing projects.
Images: top – Alexandre Christiaens – Hunter Grill, below – Mandy Barker – Beyond Drifting, Chrystel Lebas – Field Studies
