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10×10 is going to Tokyo in 2013!

10×10 is taking 100 contemporary American photobooks to Tokyo this year and we need to create a catalogue. We’re looking for backers to help fund the publication production – an experimental and creative project in its own right.

What’s 10×10 American Photobooks? 


Ten specialists from the photobook community are each selecting 10 contemporary American photobooks they consider to be influential. These 100 books will be displayed in the 10×10 American Photobooks exhibit at the Tokyo Institute of Photography for a 4-week run in September 2013. The 10×10 project makes photobooks accessible to the international bibliographic community and builds upon the success of the first 10×10 event, which exhibited Japanese post-war photobooks in NYC in 2012.

Can’t get to Tokyo?


You don’t have to! That’s why we’re producing a catalogue in collaboration with bookdummypress. The publication is a way for you to experience the entire 10×10 project, even if you can’t jet over to Tokyo to see it. The stylish and inventive Japanese manga design-inspired edition will be released with the opening of the September 2013 Tokyo reading room. The bilingual Japanese-English publication will present illustrated selection lists from all the specialists, along with essays (not previously published) on American photobook culture by noted artists, writers, publishers, curators and bibliophiles. The 10×10 American Photobooks catalogue will provide the full 10×10 experience. Support our publication, and spread the photobook love to all our community!

Here are the specialists selecting the books for the reading room:

1. Shannon Michael Cane / Printed Matter
2. Lindsey Castillo, Rebecca O’Keefe, and Grant Willing / The Camera Club of New York
3. Bruno Ceschel / Self Publish, Be Happy
4. Christina Labey / Conveyor Arts
5. Larissa LeClair / Indie Photobook Library
6. Leigh Ledare / Photographer
7. Harper Levine and John Gossage / Harper’s Books and Loosestrife Editions
8. David Senior / Museum of Modern Art Library Bibliographer
9. David Solo / Photobook Collector
10. Alec Soth and Brad Zellar / Little Brown Mushroom

Thank you for your support… Don’t be stingy!

The 10×10 American Photobooks Team

Matthew Carson
, Ihiro Hayami, 
Russet Lederman and 
Olga Yatskevich
(co-organizers)

Shiori Kawasaki and 
Victor Sira
(Publishers and book designers / bookdummypress)

Mathieu Asselin and Jeff Gutterman
(Multimedia, technical and editorial support)

The project is sponsored by the International Center of Photography Library, the Tokyo Institute of Photography, and the Photobook Facebook Group.

Like 10×10 Photobooks on Facebook.

It is that time of year again. We all discuss our favourite photobooks of 2012 and like super nerds we list them.

ten selected by Matthew:

Dun Briste, Downpatrick Head – Jan Kempenaers
Out To Lunch – Ari Marcopoulus
Elementary Calculus – J. Carrier
The Afronauts – Cristina De Middel
House of Coates – Brad Zellar and Lester B. Morrison
Cette Montagne C’est Moi – Witho Worms
Back yard – Daisuke Yokota
Glass – Leon Qu
Soho London – Anders Petersen
Friseurchen – Erik Steinbrecher

These are my top ten photographic books published in the year of 2012. They are in no particular order. To me they are all great photobooks and represent the best of 2012 and most likely beyond. Of course there are many other amazing photobooks of 2012 that I regretfully just didn’t have the space to include here in this list of merely ten.

Dun Briste, Downpatrick Head – Jan Kempenaers.
Edition, published by Roma Publications In collabortion with the Academy of Fine Arts Ghent, 2012.
30 pp + Lambda -print
23 x 33 cm
Roma Publication no.183
Signed and numbered edition of 500.
http://www.ideabooks.nl/index.php?op=video&title=28421&what=c&u=roma+publications&page=
Roma publications have been making exceptionally innovative and creative books for sometime now. Jan Kempenaers who produced the amazing book Spomenik in 2010 is a true master of the peculiar contemporary picturesque. In 2012 he brings us this cliffhanger of a book. Jan Kempenaers puts a lot of the sublime in these picturesque and romantic images. This is a book that induces deep breaths.

Out To Lunch – Ari Marcopoulus.
New York: PPP Editions, in association with Andrew Roth Inc.
[368 p.]: ill.(some col.); 28 cm.
Signed and numbered edition of 350.
R TR179.5.M369.O98 2012
Out to lunch is a trip. This is a book over stuffed with surprises including: 256 matt-black & white images, dozens of high-gloss contact sheets, 100s of vinyl stickers, 8 over-sized, glossy pull-out posters and a 32-page screenplay written by Ari with his son Cairo. Black cover which is bound with black binder’s gauze and housed within an scribbly illustrated plastic bag.  The high-gloss contacts and the stickers are just a delightful and playful touch that really emphasize and bring out the raw power of the work.

Elementary Calculus – J. Carrier
London: MACK;2012.
28 p.: 74 colour plates,; 23.5 cm x 19.5 cm.
Embossed hardcover.
Elementary Calculus is an intimate documentary work about migrants and refugees in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  We gain great insight into the outsider experience in an area of the world already complicated in terms of ethnicity and identity. We not only get to share in the hopes and desires of the migrants but we also get to feel their paralyzing disconnect with reality. It can also be seen as almost a self-portrait by J Carrier as we feel his affinity with their alienation as an expression of his own. This is a great book from MACK who have been publishing some very strong books lately.

The Afronauts – Cristina De Middel
Cadiz, Spain: Self-published, ; 2012.
84 p.: col.ill. ; 24 cm.
Published on the occasion of an exhibition in Cadiz Spain [2012] organized by Sala Kursala and curated by Jesus Mico this project is the most remarkable of narratives. A short film of this project can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/43859875
The story begins in Zambia in 1964 where school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso single-handedly started a space program to put the first Africans in space. Including the story of Matha Mwamba who was to be the first coloured woman to be sent to Mars accompanied by her ten cats, fired by a catapult system designed and developed by Edward Nkoloso.  The beautiful images within this book show the various apparatus used in the absurd training program. Unfortunately the Zambian program never got off the ground due to the lack of government funding and the pregnancy of one of the afronauts. The narrative is a great magic-realist romp which sensually delights and dazzles us. But this book is also profoundly highlighting our lack of belief in Africa and our continuing prejudices towards African nations. The Afronauts, printed in Italy, is incredibly beautiful and well made with informational inserts, fold-out letters and varied playful textures of paper. The cover is held together with a comforting elastic band.

House of Coates – Brad Zellar and Lester B. Morrison
St. Paul, Minn.: Little Brown Mushroom, 2012.
[118 p.] : col.ill.; 22 cm.
R TR179.5.Z53. H68 2012
This book is awesome. Is it really any wonder that the first edition of 1000 sold out in under 2 weeks? This is the extraordinary story of legendary recluse Lester B. Morrison* who in the winter of 2011 finally gave Brad Zellar access to the results of an MMPI – Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – test that Morrison submitted to in August of 2009. Along with access to the results he also supplied the administrating psychiatrists detailed notes and a mysterious duct taped shoebox marked PERISHABLE containing almost two hundred photographs termed disposable documents of the approximate period in question by Lester B. Morrison. This is a brilliant edge of your seat photo thriller brought to you by the Little Brown Mushroom blokes who are makers of exceedingly good books. This is a spiral bound book (and I think that matters).

*Incidentally my colleague Liz Sales says she knows Lester and that she will be interviewing him for the ICP blog one day soon – we shall keep you posted on that. Can anyone really know Lester?

Back yard – Daisuke Yokota
Tokyo: Self-published,; 2012.
[52 p.]: chiefly ill.; 29 cm.
TR179.5.Y589.B33 2012
For me and many others this was one of the visual highlights of the 10×10 Japanese Photobooks show held at the ICP/Bard MFA studios in Queens this year.This is a great photocopied artists’zine from a remarkable young Japanese photographer. Daisuke bleached out and printed, then re-photographed and re-printed each image up to 10 times over in the darkroom to create the nosiest back yard around. Good interview with Daisuke Yokota in American Photo Mag: http://www.americanphotomag.com/photo-gallery/2012/07/shoot-print-repeat-interview-daisuke-yokota

Cette Montagne C’est Moi – photographs by Witho Worms.
Text by Xavier Canonne.
[city]: FW:, 2012.
176 p.: chiefly ill.;22 x 25 cm.
A gorgeous book made on black paper. Roughly translated as: This mountain that’s me. I do love a book made on black paper. This is a book of semi-abstracted imagery of slag heaps from Belgium, France, Germany, Wales and Poland [the slag heaps of each country are indicated on the page using the country codes BE, DE, FR, PL, GB]. Witho Worms [photographer] reformulated carbon printing techniques and processes from the 19^th century and uniquely mixed in some coal as pigment from the mountains he was taking images of. Adorable slag heaps of Europe in shades of brown and black on thick black paper [French folds] that are like Rothko paintings. This is a book of deep environmental iconography. http://www.witho.nl/

Glass – Leon Qu
China; Vancouver, Canada: 88books,; 2012.
TR179.5.Q582 .G53 2012
This book Glass by Leon Qu is one of series of ten books produced by 88books that were brought to my attention by ICP curator Christopher Phillips. Hands holding a piece of glass and the resulting atmospheric effects and results then photographed. For me it was reminiscent of the work of Kenneth Josephson which I admire greatly. This is a small book with a meaningful punch.

Soho London – Anders Petersen
London: The Photographer’s galley & MACK,;2012.
124 p.: chiefly ill.; 27 cm.
Anders Petersen applies his very special and individual aesthetic to London. The results are extremely successful and the production by MACK carries this project home on a high. This is a very fine, beautifully printed and well-designed clothbound book. As part of his ‘City Diaries’ series there is perhaps nothing new for the die-hard Petersen fan and observer used to his surreal and gritty imagery of street life and subcultures. Personally I think there is something unbearably lighter and extra-clinical in this particular city diary which I feel is its ‘Englishness’. As a person born and raised in London I recognize this depiction of Soho. This book is an authentic representation of an area in the city known for its inelegant attitude.

Friseurchen – Erik Steinbrecher
Berlin : Kodoji Press, 2012
[12] folded plates : ill. 30 cm.
Edition of 300.
R TR656.5 .S841 2012
“Published on the occasion of the exhibition ANIMISMUS at Haus der Kulturen Berlin, March 2012″ – colophon. Friseurchen by Erik Steinbrecher is essentially twelve photographic compositions with hair. Erik is a Swiss artist and architect who often creates charming books of the absurd.  He presents a complex system of associations and ideas in this book around the theme of hair. Hair and wigs taken out of the usual context and given a strange and compelling emphasis. I knew this book was a gem when I saw the remarkable belly band consisting of a single strand of hair on a white background.

My copy of Alec Soth’s and Brad Zellar’s first newspaper in the Dispatch series and self published through Soth’s Little Brown Mushroom, Ohio, got delivered today! I purposefully didn’t read too much into it before it arrived beyond the basic premise of the project, because I think its more exciting to view a photobook with fresh eyes whenever possible.

The newspaper is mostly made up of portraits of people that Soth and Zellar met whilst on their travels across the state of Ohio in May of this year; soldiers, volunteers at a soup kitchen, dancers, church congregations and Theology teachers, battle re-enactors and cards players. There is a huge amount of variety, as would be expected from meeting people in this way. However, what draws them all together is the sense that they are all trying to find ways to feel a sense of community and belonging in some way, or as Zellar describes it a ‘real world connection where loneliness seems increasingly to be an epidemic more corrosive than the popular culture that fuels it.’

Its something that I have been thinking a lot about lately; largely due to the fact that graduating has meant a return to a small town, much like those photographed by Soth across Ohio, where I have never truly felt a part of the community in any real way.

I don’t want to give too much away about it, but its definitely worth a purchase. Full of great portraits, even better stories and some interesting thoughts from Zellar too.

In House of Coates, writer Brad Zellar pieces together the story of legendary recluse Lester B. Morrison. Working from a handful of encounters and contradictory conversations, a sketchy paper trail and often confounding interviews with individuals who may or may not have been “associates” of Morrison (including Morrison’s former collaborator Alec Soth), Zellar attempts to reconstruct one episode from Morrison’s decidedly episodic life. In the winter of 2011, Zellar finally crossed paths with his evasive subject, and was –with Morrison’s permission– granted access to the results of an MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) test that Morrison submitted to in August of 2009, along with the administrating psychiatrist’s copious notes. Finally, in late December of last year, Zellar received in the mail a duct-taped shoebox –marked “PERISHABLE”– containing almost two hundred photographs that Morrison termed “disposable documents of the approximate period in question.”

From these raw materials designer Hans Seeger has assembled a book that Morrison himself has pronounced, “Probably close enough to what might or might not have happened, and that’s as much as I’ve learned to expect from the so-called ‘real world.’”

Source; littlebrownmushroom

HARPAZO (v.):  1) to seize, carry off my force.  2) to seize on, claim for onself eagerly.  3) to snatch out or away.

Nadja by Andre Breton was first published in France in 1928.  The novel is often considered a defining piece of Surrealism.

The novel describes the author’s restless and obsessive relationship with Nadja, his young lover, as well as his relationship with life in Paris.

The last time I read Nadja I was probably 18 or 19, but loved the book for the anxiety and malaise depicted.  More than a woman, Nadja is a metaphor, maybe a vision, and represents the life we desire rather than the life we live.  Nadja is like the white whale, always just out of reach.

Published between the World Wars, Nadja represents the longing and disaffection that characterize the art of the times.  The story is told in a first person narrative, interwoven with photographs of Paris.

The other day, straight from Little Brown Mushroom, I received a copy of House of Coates, the collaborative book made by Alec Soth and Brad Zellar.

Immediately, I am struck by the similarities I see between Nadja and House of Coates.

House of Coates tells the story of Lester B. Morrison.  The story is told with a mix of prose written by Brad Zellar, and photographs by Alec Soth (though attributed to Lester).  The photographs, presumedly, are all take around Soth’s hometown of Minneapolis, MN.  Like the character of Nadja, Lester is more a metaphor than a specific person.  If Nadja represents the unfulfilled longing and desire of war rattled Europe, Lester is the broken spirit of middle America.

A person can’t properly hide in this world unless they believe there’s someone out there looking for them.  There”s a good deal of ego invested in the act of hiding.  Or maybe these fugitives think there’s someone out there in the world who wants something from them that they’re not prepared to give.  The sad truth, of course, is that the world seldom wants much of anything from such people, and that is a truth that could do nothing but further hurt the feelings of men who had had their feelings hurt so many times and in so many ways that they could no longer feel anything but hurt.

Lester can’t really be forgotten, because he was never really noticed.  He is an exile in his own land (he never strays too far from where he was born).  He spends his time in a sort of no man’s land, that part of any city that grew with its development but was quickly forgotten, with nameless hotels and prostitutes, and is full of broken things and broken people.

Harpazo – inscribed on the spine – is an important idea and turning point in the story.  It’s a religious term, typically used to describe religious rapture or deliverance.

Towards the end of the story, Lester meets Majel, and begins to discover love and trust again.  She encourages to embrace religious salvation, and in the end, we are left to contemplate whether Lester discovers faith, or whether he commits the ultimately act of nihilism (though this also might be act of faith).

“In House of Coates, writer Brad Zellar pieces together the story of legendary recluse Lester B. Morrison. Working from a handful of encounters and contradictory conversations, a sketchy paper trail and often confounding interviews with individuals who may or may not have been “associates” of Morrison (including Morrison’s former collaborator Alec Soth), Zellar attempts to reconstruct one episode from Morrison’s decidedly episodic life.”

On first look one has to wonder what is this “House of Coates”, who is this Lester Morrison and what an interesting photobook/essay presentation. There is a sense given while reading that anyone might know this man, but if you had he would already have been sadly forgotten. Lester is a tragic man left to wander alone, his isolation palpable. The photos taken by Lester create such a sense of solitude and show an emotional detachment that makes one feel very sorry for this poor creature whose tragedy is far far worse than your neighborhood hoarder or resident cat lady (cat pee smell excluded). Its a journey you won’t regret witnessing.

Zellar’s writing evokes a feeling of a cautionary tale, almost needing a campfire for the telling.

The book made me think of all those friends and acquaintances I’d have forgotten and lost were it not for their beleaguered efforts to track me down on Facebook. The limited edition seems to add to the drive to pick this book up and a reasonable price of sale. Its not your typical photobook but is a pleasant surprise and one that warrants several looks. What I find most exciting is anticipating the work to follow this. It seems Little Brown Mushroom is bursting with a very different vision of art and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Getting my hands on this book was definitely worth the time and money. Currently it is available for ~$28 – second edition of 1000 from Little Brown Mushroom.

House of Coates, published by Alec Soth’s Little Brown Mushroom is a written account by Brad Zellar of Lester B. Morrison and accompanied with photographs, said to be taken by the “legendary recluse,” Morrison himself.  There are plenty out there, leery of Lester B. Morrison’s existence and believe that Morrison is a fictitious creation of Alec Soth and the photographs contained within House of Coates are in fact taken by Soth.  Perhaps this does not matter but I can’t help but be a bit excited that I might one day be able to claim that I was privy to the joke as I have recently purchased the now sold out House of Coates signed by Brad Zellar and Alec Soth.

____________________________________

“A voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40: 3

I won’t share details of Lester B. Morrison’s story but will share this… I found assurance in a sort of salvation within the story/account despite the loneliness and rejection throughout the majority of the book.  The photographs both serve as accompanying illustrations to Zellar’s text and as a narrative of their own.  I read the book twice, once paying attention only to the photographs and once reading the words along with the photographs.  Each time I read, I understand why we are often hesitant to rely on others or to subscribe to this great community that is preached by preachers and championed by the likes of Robert Adams.  I am married and I have dogs.  And although I grew up with dogs all my life I have never experienced the death of a single one.  They have all either run away (dogs do return to the wilderness to die), been stolen, or for whatever circumstance been given away.  The two dogs I have now will probably be the first for which I will have to deal with their deaths.  It frightens me.  It frightens me and reading House of Coates I was reminded why with the following passage:

“A man shouldn’t get involved with any breathing thing that depends on him unless he’s prepared to go all in.”

Ultimately my dogs’ lives do not rank too high in the order of things.  My marriage however does and growing old together scares me for similar reasons.  Selfish am I to want to die first.  Cruel am I to want to live longer.  And this is because I have fully committed to another person.

Reading about Lester B Morrison, I imagine at one point in his life he was abandoned or the estranged family member and is now hesitant of any sort of commitment to anyone.  He was left in the wilderness to forge for himself fortified however not on the notion that despite our times of solitude we are meant to live together but instead on the realization that it often takes despair to survive. Despair after all makes one keen to the selfishness of others and perhaps even more aware of animals that survive on the tender flesh of vulnerability.  The images throughout speak to this despair… dimly lit hallways, snowdrifts, and howling dogs.

In the beginning of this, I alluded to the idea that House of Coates is about being found.  And it is.  If it seems contradictory given that the majority of the story seems to be about loneliness and despair it is because salvation can be found in peculiar places.  Being vulnerable might not always feel good.  It is often painful but often a place to find comfort.  The ending of House of Coates is bittersweet as well. But there is a clearing in the wilderness and a path to a not so lonely place.

Here LightBox spotlights some of the best photobooks of the year as chosen by a group of photographers and photography experts from around the world…. and of course a few from the photo editors of TIME.  From the selection one can see the art of the photobook continues to flourish in all genres from reportage to fine art photography, fashion and everything in between. This year’s books range from luxurious tomes like Catherine Opie and Alec Soth’s collaboration for Rodarte to smaller precious books like Fred Hunning’s Drei. Overall the selection shows that even as masses of information come at us from all our digital devices, people still enjoy a singular vision and the process of sitting down with a good book—especially one that pushes the boundaries of the format. Herewith, the photobooks we loved the most in 2011.

The ICP store’s brilliant  Kate Cunningham’s Q&A with Alec Soth can be read here: http://shopping.icp.org/store/qa.html

Q: When did you first decide to self-publish under the name Little Brown Mushroom? What was the first project? . . .and other questions in a wonderful interview.

The Little Brown Mushroom team shall be in the ICP book store this Friday – ready, willing and able to sign your book purchases. They shall be bringing along delightful handmade books that will undoubtedly be the collector’s items of the future. These superb and affordable artists’ books will be selling like hot cakes so come early and bring your pennies with you. While the Little Brown Mushroom team scribble upon your new book purchases be sure to enjoy a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon which will be served as refreshment.

All proceeds of the sale of Conductors of the Moving World by Brad Zellar shall be going towards Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami relief.

Everybody should be reading this blog:
http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/