PHOTOBOOKSTORE UK - October photobook delights

UK's PHOTOBOOKSTORE always has an action packed mailing each month and October is no exception. Here are a few books that caught my eye.

Susanne Otterberg - No More Junk Mail Please

I could never have dreamed that my grandmother would become demented. She was always so alert, stubborn and strong. The book is about how she and I journeyed into a new world. She gave me the name Jens and was disappointed in me because I no longer came to visit her. Instead it was this Jens who was there helping her. I photographed her the whole time to try to understand what was happening inside her head, and it was also a way to handle my grief over losing her.

Jim Goldberg - Rich and Poor

From 1977 to 1985, Goldberg photographed the wealthy and destitute of San Francisco, creating a visual document that has since become a landmark work. Through the combination of text and photographs, Rich and Poor's mass appeal was instantly recognizable. In 1984 the series was exhibited alongside Robert Adams and Joel Sternfeld in the "Three Americans" exhibition at MoMA, and was published the following year by Random House. Out of print since 1985, Jim Goldberg's Rich and Poor has been completely re-designed and expanded by the artist for Steidl. Available for the first time in hardcover, Rich and Poor builds upon the classic combination of photographs and handwriting and adds a surplus of vintage material and contemporary photographs that have never been published or exhibited. The photographs in Rich and Poor constitute a shocking and gripping portrait of America during the 70's and 80's that remains just as relevant today. A Steidl reprint, 2014.

Olga Matveeva - Feud

Feud is the fraternal war in which the opposition parties often can’t explain its roots and its prime cause. It is some kind of certain sacral action reproducing itself. Actually it is very difficult to be aside of the situation. There is no chance not to react for information provocations, current news and you can’t avoid looking at falling down of Lenin’s monument, when you are in the center of events. The strategic lie generates aggression, and you inevitably become its partner.

The dissonance between common sense and reality is out of any understanding.
Feud is a category of intimate space. Close people who share common bed and who have common past, suddenly become real enemies. Everyone prepares his own concealed plan and builds the strategy of envision. Who started this provocation and what is the source of its nature? You are becoming dependent on it, as if it is some kind of a drug. You feel yourself as an animal in a cage, but you can’t jump out. War and hate here look like a passion, just like the filling and identification of yourself using your counterpart.

You can see a whole lot more HERE.