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Foto's: Rimaldas Viksraitas
Tekst: Rimaldas Viksraitas , Martin Parr
Redactie: Martin Parr
Uitgever: White Space Gallery
80 paginax92s
20.9x9x29.7 cm
ISBN: 9780955739460
Prijs: €42,99

Na te zijn 'ontdekt' door Martin Parr werd de Litouwse fotograaf Rimaldas Viksraitis in 2009 op het fotofestival in Arles beloond met de Discovery Award for New Photography. Dit jaar werd, ter gelegenheid van zijn eerste solotentoonstelling in Groot-Brittannië, een selectie uit zijn werk gebundeld in de mooie catalogus Grimaces of the Weary Village.
De cover lijkt op een doos fotopapier en de foto's in het boek zijn afgedrukt als x91vintage printx92. Dat moet de lezer het gevoel geven een haast fysieke schat aan prints voor het eerst in handen te hebben. Dat Viksraitis in Litouwen een lange staat van dienst heeft doet hier weinig aan af.
Buiten de mooie vormgeving hebben de foto's inhoudelijk ook veel te bieden. De lezer maakt een reis door het Litouwse platteland die steeds vreemder van karakter wordt. Na het uiteenvallen van de Sovjet-Unie zakte hier de Litouwse landbouwsector ineen. Jongeren keerden massaal het platteland de rug toe en al wat restte waren spooksteden bevolkt door de verworpenen der aarde. In deze spooksteden fotografeerde Viksraitis plattelanders, vaak onder invloed van alcohol, en veelal omringt door dieren. De doorleefde huizen zijn net stallen waarin mens en dier een symbiose vormt. Meestal in harmonie, maar soms in een ruw contrast. Enerzijds worden de dieren genadeloos over de kling gejaagd, anderzijds nemen geiten, kippen en ganzen deel aan het gezinsleven.
Van enige gene met betrekking tot de armoede of de alcoholproblemen en het daaraan gekoppelde rariteitenkabinet lijkt geen sprake. De bewoners figureren in beschonken toestand, vaak naakt of in een obscene houding zonder zich te storen aan de aanwezige fotograaf.
Niet zelden worden Viksraitis foto's vergeleken met Richard Billingham's Ray's a Laugh (2000) of Boris Mikhailov's Case History (1999). Maar anders Billingham fotografeerde Viksraitis niet zijn directe familieleden. Viksraitis bezocht de desolate streek uit zijn jeugd en werd door de bewoners in hun woningen en leven toegelaten. Met een camera vastgebonden aan zijn fiets trok hij langs verschillende woningen en legde de bewoners vast. Daarin lijkt zijn werkwijze eerder op die van de in Zuid-Afrika werkende Roger Ballen ten tijde van diens publicaties Dorps (1986) en Platteland (1994). Viksraitis blijft dus een buitenstaander en anders dan Boris Mikhailov vereenzelvigd Vikskraitis zich minder met deze mensen, ook al zijn in het boek verschillende zelfportretten opgenomen.
Vikskraitis biedt een beeld van een verdwijnende disfunctionele samenleving die gebukt gaat onder alcoholmisbruik en verpaupering. In zijn fotox92s staat tegenover hilariteit de disintegratie van een samenleving en een volharding in overlevingskracht. De tegenstelling tussen humor en gruwel is een terugkerend thema bij veel fotografen die met vergelijkbare onderwerpen werken als Viksraitis. Naast de eerder genoemde Richard Billingham, Boris Boris Mikhailov is ook de een vergelijking met Roger Ballen, bij wie dieren eveneens een bijzondere functie vervullen, te maken.
In zijn het voorwoord schrijft Parr: x91The resulting images, published here, are slightly insane and wonderfully surreal. They are quite compelling, and, if I spoke Lithuanian, I would love to join in the party. However, as this will never happen, Viksraitis provides us with a ring-side seat, with all the emotion, the drink and the ensuing madness. Maar zoals de discussie vaak gaat over fotografie met gelijksoortige onderwerpen, blijft het, zoals Parr terecht beschrijft, kijken vanaf een veilige afstand.

From Amazon: Swiss Photobooks from 1927 to the Present is the first comprehensive overview of the major publications that influenced Swiss photography in the 20th century. Seventy historic photographic books are introduced alongside numerous images, interpreted by expert specialists. The selected works offer a framework for a fresh look at the development of photographic styles and forms of expression, from the beginnings of modern photographic books in the 1930s to their ascendance in the present day. In-depth summaries covering the various epochs as well as a bibliography complement the chronologically laid-out essays on the individual publications. On the occasion of its 40th anniversary the Fotostiftung Schweiz will add a companion piece to its earlier standard work on Swiss photography with this compact portrait. In doing so they not only recognize numerous outstanding photographers, but also provide an innovative key to understanding the visual culture of Switzerland. The book is published in parallel to an exhibition at the Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur.

Hardcover: 640 pages

And there is another one coming. This one is quite interesting and hopefully as good as the book on Japanese Photobooks.
Two books on Dutch photobooks are planned to be published as well.

Click here for Martin Parr's pick for the best photobooks of the decade.

article soon to come

On his way by train to Amsterdam from Sittard, where museum Het Domein recently opened his new exhibition ‘Skadukant’, the highly acclaimed and influentual American photographer Roger Ballen spoke on the phone with Ben Krewinkel. The conversation turned to his early and recent projects, his position in South African photography, the difference between documentary and art photography and ended on animals and farms. ‘Farms are as destructive as cities’. Welcome to the dark world of Roger Ballen.

Recently Protea Book House republished one of your first books called Dorps, Small Towns of South Africa, which has been described by you as a key publication in your career. How come?
During the time I produced the book (1982-1986) I tried to capture the unique aesthetic sensibility of South African towns. During this period it was the first and last time I ever photographed architecture as well as being the last time I ever photographed in the outdoors. For the first time, I photographed interiors and still lifes, as well as using a square format camera and flash. The wires and walls (which are key elements in Ballens work – ed.) appear for the first time in Dorps. In many ways you could say I found my aesthetic here, a foundation for my later work was laid.

Was Dorps your first publication made in South Africa and is it a pure South African topic?
From 1982 to 1986, I worked on Dorps and from 1986 to 1994 I worked on another publication called Platteland, Images from Rural South Africa. At the completion of the book Platteland in 1994, I ceased taking pictures in the South African countryside.

During the time I worked on the project Dorps, I metaphorically crossed some sort of river. You might say it was a crossing from the world of documentary to that of art. A few of the photographs in the book, you can’t put words to them. They deal with a kind of silent aesthetics. For instance one of the first pictures that I believe was a work of art was called ‘Bedroom, Bethulie 1984’. There are few others like that. I never did anything like this up to that point.

While photographing Dorps I started to understand what the fundamental difference between documentary and more artistic photography was. If you ask me if I captured a typically South African aesthetic I would say yes, but Dorps contains some images that went far beyond.

The same thing occurred with Platteland. Why are these pictures still so powerful today. Even if you know nothing about South African history the pictures stick with the viewer. It’s because they contain some kind of visual archetypes.

Do you consider Platteland as a sequal to Dorps?
I always say, Dorps was about ‘Places’, Platteland was about the ‘People’. The people from Platteland fitted well in the places of Dorps. So, yes, you might say the books go together. The design and format of both books is also very similar.

Some of the portraits in Dorps remind me strongly of the portraits in Platteland.
The portraits in Dorps are more fragile and soft than those that can be found in Platteland which became more piercing and psychological and even disturbing to many people.

The wire appears in most of your work. Has it always been photographed on purpose?
No, from 1986 until 1994 most of my photographs were somewhat documentary. The wires in the images that I photographed were just there. During the Dorps and Platteland period (1982-1994) I considered myself a documentary photographer, I didn’t move or touched things or try to make things more or less complicated. Most of the time, I wouldn’t even think about the meaning of te wires in the background, they were just there. Beginning with Outland (1995-2000) my photographs became more abstract, and at this time I began to see myself as artist as well as photographer.

Why?
I started to interact in the making of the pictures. I started to direct people, to bring things into the photographs. It wasn’t just photographing of what was there in front of me, I started to add more of myself to the photograph.

How were the reactions to Dorps, and how do people react on the reissue? I can imagine people nowadays have a different opinion of your work than they did in 1986.
The first edition of Dorps was only distributed in South Africa and sold very well. There wasn’t as much controversy with Dorps as with Platteland. But things have changed here also in South Africa. People now not only relate to the pictures differently because they see that as a part of my career development, but also because we are now in a different era of history. Five or six years ago, I was still seen as an outsider, an American. Many people felt uncomfortable with my images. I believe at this time there is a lot more respect for what I’ve done over the years. Many of the young people in South Africa look up to me and respect the contribution I made to the history of South African photography.

Do you think a possible reissue of Platteland would also evoke different, less hard, reactions, at this time?
Yes, definitely. During the early 1990s the white population was very defensive and insecure about itself. At the time, I think the reason for controversy was that it showed white people to be much different than they have been portrayed by the authorities who liked to portray them as well organised, efficient, well dressed and well educated you know. I photographed people who were exactly the opposite. In a way, my photographs broke that balloon. They were in power at the time, and felt very fragile about their position.

Your early documentary orientated work seems to have been influenced by European and American photographers, especially Magnum-photographers.
Yes, my mother used to work for the Magnum agency and was one of the first individual to start a photographic gallery in the United States. In the first eighteen years of my life I saw a lot of photography, photographs made by people like Strand and Cartier-Bresson. I started to do serious photography at the age of eighteen, but I never went to a photographic school or took photo classes. I had a good intrinsic understanding of what made a good photograph.

You are obviously influential on young (South African) photographers. Were you also influenced by South African photographers the last thirty years?
South African photography has been dominated by people whose goal is to make political statements and reveal the cultural issues of the country, which was never my primary concern.

In Outland and Shadow Chamber the documentary seems to be changed to psychological photography completely.
And to a more abstract and complex photography. I think in those books my style started to come into it’s own in some way. During the period that I produced worked on Shadow Chamber (2005), my style finally became definitive. In other words, the viewer could easily recognise a Roger Ballen photograph from other photographers. After working for nearly fifty years the meaning of my work finally became defined in terms of my own particular aesthetics, which is something I’m quite pleased about now.

The people in your recent work become more anonymous than before.

The faces become less important. From 2002 faces started to dissapear in my work. I feel I’ve said what I wanted to say with my subjects and I needed to go on with other aspects of my aesthetics. Other visual aspects started to get more developed too, such as the relationship of drawings, painting and sculpture to the photograph itself.

Who makes these wall drawings?
Sometimes they are there, sometimes I make them and sometimes it’s done by my subjects. It’s never one way or the other, it’s an interactive proces with the people and the places.
If you just take a picture of a drawing, than that’s documentary. I actually transform things. Making the photograph is really the last step in a long proces, which has to be a decisive special moment.

In my opinion many conceptional photographs do not come at you with any intensity because the artist hasn’t been able to unify a photography within a decive moment. ‘The moment’ is the most important concept of photography.

Who are the people who inhabit your photographs and are they the same peope all over again?
No. People come and go. For Boarding House (2009) I worked with poor migrant workers, miracle healers and criminals as well who stayed in a former warehouse near Johannesburg for four to five years. Some people I photograph once and then they dissapear forever. The man on the cover of Shadow Chamber, for instance. I photographed him for five minutes and never saw him again. It became one of my greatest photographs.

Would you consider your recent work as collaborative photography?

Yes, up to a point. But then, I’m the director. My job, basically, is to make the visual forms coherent, to create meaning out chaos. Art must have a deep, layered and complex meaning, staying in the viewers mind, stomach and consciousness. I want pictures to challenge people’s psyche, to challenge their insides. I make images that come out from the dark straight into their faces.

But are we looking at your dark inner thoughts or that of the people in the photographs?
Photography is unlike painting in which anything can occur in the mind. With photography you are dealing with the actual physical world, whether it’s a rabbit or a person. It’s very important to think of the animals in my work too. There are more animals than people in my photos. What do they mean?

I noticed the animals are a returning element in your work. They already appear in Platteland. What is their function?
If you look at mythology every animal has a place, whether it’s an elephant, a rooster or a rat. They all contain deep symbolism. There is something mysterious and enigmatic to them.

I want to provoke the viewer to think about the nature and the self of the animal. I don’t want my photographs to say one thing or two things or provide easy answers. I think the pictures can mean opposite things. There could be beauty and ugliness, humour and tragedy in the same image. I don’t want my pictures to be easily defined. One of my favourite quotes is: ‘My best pictures are the ones I don’t understand.’

The animals are mostly situated in a harsh environment, to which their softness stands in a great contrast.
That’s an important thing to say. Look around you. I’m in a train now, looking around there is no single (wild) animal. Everything has been destroyed. There is an aspect of comment about that in my work. It’s funny. People might think it’s good to have farms and think the are ecological a good idea. There is no natural life on farms, they are environmentally destructive.

Farms are as destructive as cities. They destroy everything, the whole landscape. Since I’ve been on the this train from Sittard to Amsterdam, I haven’t seen one single wild animal out of the window.

Do The Netherlands and South Africa differ regarding the animals?
No, in South Africa the only places you find animals is in the parks. It’s all a big lie. It’s a big whole advertising game to get people to come to South Africa. The only animals are there for the tourists. There are only a few places in Africa which have real wildlife anymore. Most has been destroyed a long time ago.

You’ve just opened a show at the museum Het Domein called ‘Skadukant’ in which you’ve staged some of your photos in a special in situ installation of your own design, using materials collected in Johannesburg and Sittard. Do you consider this creation of a three-dimensional environment as a landmark in your career?

The installation that I created in Sittard certainly was a big step forward. I was always involved in making installations in a live environment such as Boarding House. This is the first time I was actually going out of that environment into a museum and tried to replicate the feeling, the sensibility and aesthetics of the places that I’ve worked with. It’s really been a challenge and was very rewarding to actually have accomplished this in the way I did. I did the whole thing in 24 hours. It added a very interesting dimension my work. When you look at a photograph on the wall, it’s not the same thing as walking into a space in which photographs have been staged in an installation. In the Sittard show the one thing certainly complements the other. The photograph is basically a two dimensional object, where a room is almost a sculptural place which you can immerse yourself into. The experience people have looking at a photograph versus immersing themselves in this space is quite different.

‘Skadukant’ also showed some photographs from a project called ‘Asylum’, in which birds play an important role. Can you tell something about this project?
’Asylum’ is my latest project I’m working on since 2008, which will be published in the next two years. I work at a particular house in Johannesburg where there are a lot of birds, tame and wild. I’ve been photographing these birds interacting with this place. The pictures have become more dense and the drawings more pervasive than ever before. Faces have almost completely dissapeared, although there are some portraits of people. It’s really about a place dominated by my aesthetics. These are very complicated photographs. The relationship of the birds to the aesthetic create a meaning. I guess it’s up to people like yourself to try to decipher this meaning.
As I said the meaning is multiple, layered and sometimes very contradictory. Are the photographs beautiful or disturbing? What is the image saying to your inner self? It’s not easy. It’s all there in your face, but you grapple at the words to descibe it. The thing with most South African photography of the last decades is that it has been too easy for journalist to define this kind of photograph with words since it is always about a political ideology. If one talks about political ideology of the mind or the politics of the subconsciousness and the dyamics of the phenominology of the mind, then you come to a pretty mysterious place.

© Ben Krewinkel

May 9^th 2011

www.rogerballen.com

www.hetdomein.nl

To complete the list of the last post, I have to notice the reader on a recent publication by Aperture. The title Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography edited by Verna Posever Curtis. The book contains many photographic albums, beautifully reproduced. Yielding a wonderful range of objects made for varying purposesto memorialize, document (officially or unofficially), promote, or educate, and sometimes simply to channel creative energy. Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography traces the rise of the album from the turn of the century to the present day, showcasing some of the most important examples in the history of the medium, as collected by the Library of Congress.
ISBN13: 9781597111317

Where to you start when collecting photographic books, or photobooks? Since the two volumes The Photobook, a history (Phaidon, 2004/2006), by Gerry Badger and Martin Parr the prices of the included titles have been tripled or more. Many of the titles have become difficult, some even impossible, to obtain. Trying to find all the included titles won’t make any sence, but you might find one of these rare titles by chance. The problem is there are rivals, often professional bookdealers, in the field who search ebay, amazon, alibris, abebooks etc. eagerly, just to sell their bargains for much higher prices.

Of course the solution to this problem is just to be patient or buy new published books before these titles will be incorporated in another book on photobooks.

But let’s start with the first question. What if you want to start collecting photobooks. We can say the two volumes of Parr and Badger are the best introduction to this topic. Approximately 500 titles are discussed, but more importantly, the books are categorised thematically. Each chapter deals with a theme like ‘The Postwar European Photobook’, or ‘The Company Photobook’, which is thoughtfully introduced by Gerry Badger. Martin Parr continues by discussing books which fit in the theme. Nice to read, but the main problem, which is admitted by Parr and Badger, is the slightly subjective approach. Why only on title by Gilles Peress?, why is Sebastiao Salgado not included? Why only one chapter on Non-western books. Many booklovers will miss some of their favourite titles. But let’s be fair, Parr and Badger did a good job, which would be hard to surpass.

Another problem which rises is the tenability of these books. Since volume two was published in 2006 many great photobooks have seen the light of day. Many of those books will be remaindered. They just have to wait and hope to appear in The Photobook, A history volume 3 which might see the day of light as well.

The Photobook is the most popular book on photobooks, but Parr and Badger where definitely not the first. When they were working on the first volume, collector Andrew Roth edited The Book of 101 Books, Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century (Roth Horowitz, LLC 2001), which appeared in three different editions and has become a collector’s item as well.

The Book of 101 Books is a beautifuly produced book, but not as strong as The Photobook because it lacks the historical approach of Gerry Badger.
Roth’s book is good and it was the first on which dealt with photographic books from the nineteenth century till the 21th.

A long time ago Thomas Dugan wrote the book Photography Between the Covers (Light Impression, 1979), in shich he interviewed bookmakers like Larry Clarke and Eikoe Hosoe. It is an interesting book, but it is better to read more recent articles on specific books on the internet.
Interestingly in the Netherlands a book with the same title was published and dealt with photographic books the way Roth, Parr and Badger did. The bilangual Foto in omslag : Het Nederlandse documentaire fotoboek na 1945 / Photography between covers : The Dutch documentary photobook after 1945
(Fragment, 1989) edited by Mattie Boom tells the story of photographic books in The Netherlands since 1945. The titles involved where put in an international and historical context of the publicizing of photobooks. Certainly there is a tradition in producing fine photographic books in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately Foto in Omslag didn’t become a gem. The texts are good, but the lack of colour photographs of the bookcovers is an opportunity missed.

A better produced book is Fotografía Pública : Photography in Print 1919-1939 (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2000) which documents an exhibit at Spain’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. The book deals with the publication of photographs in print during the interbellum. It was the first book in which photobooks where photographed as objects, the best way to appeal to collectors. Roth and Parr as well succesfully took over this concept of writing on photobooks.

A book worth to mention is Het Bedrijfsfotoboek 1945-1965 professionalisering van fotografen in Nederland (Uitgeverij 010, 2001) by Mirelle Tijssen in which only Dutch Company books are described.

Thinking of photographs in print two other volumes are worth to mention. First is Robert Lebecks Kiosk, A History of Photojournalism (Steidl, 2002).

Another interesting book which focusses on reportage in the magazine is the supurb Things as They Are, Photojournalism in context since 1955 (Aperture, 2006) edited by Mary Panzer and Christian Cajolle. After publication many of the mentoined reportages where made into photobooks like Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage, Bruce Davidson’s East 100^th Street, Susan Meiselas’ Nicaragua etc.
Strickly speaking these are no books on photobooks, but you might read them as books on magazines which are the precursors of photobook.

Since the publications mentoined above some other books on books appeared, but never did they surpass them. Only the beautiful Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ‘70s (Aperture 2009) van Ryūichi Kaneko en Ivan Vartanian and deals with Japanese photobooks the same way Parr and Badger did.

Andrew Roth produced The Open Book (Hasselblad Center, 2004), which accompanied the traveling exhibition on photobooks, organized by the Hasselblad. It is a nice book, but less interesting than The Book of 101 Books.

There is a serious lack of discussing the involved titles. The book only tells things as publication date, size etc.

Even worse are people who are selfproducing books on photobooks in which they can put the titles missed by Parr, Badger and Roth. One of those books is 802 Photo Books. A selection from the M+M. Auer collection (2008). This book

contains collections from the Michèle and Michel Auer Library containing over 20,000 books. But is does nothing more than that. Jeffrey Ladd on his weblog 5B4 rightly calles it pornography just

because it is a miniscule publication which also only shows the covers or random pages from 802 books ... and it also tells collectors if

the books appears in the volumes by Parr (PB1

or PH2), The Open Book (OB) or The Book on 101 Books (BB). So as a collector you don’t have to think anymore. Just buy these 802 books and there you are, another mission accomplished.

Hopefully the future brings better publications just like Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ‘70s. I’m eagerly waiting on a book on South African photobooks, or photobooks from Latin America. A books only describing ‘concerned’ photobooks might be interesting as well. There are more than the ones Parr and Badger mention. Or do we have to wait on The Photobook, A history volume 3. It might be worth waiting for.

Last Wednesday (2011-2-2) Koen Wessing passed away. Known as one of the most talented engaged photographers of the Netherlands this is a great loss. Wessing published several books, but his best (and mentioned in Parr) is Chili September 1973. The book is an angry outcry against the criminal coup d'etat led by General Augosto Pinochet.
Chili September 1973 (published in 1973 by De Bezige Bij) is nowadays hard to find. Some sellers ask exurbutant prices for this publication which originally was sold for bout five guilders. Fortunately Errata Editions 'republished' the book in their fantastic series Books on Books.
Since Chili September 1973 Wessing published several books, but none of them were as good as Chili. It had nothing to do with the quality of the photographs, but was due to a lesser quality of bookmaking.
This year the Chili photographs of Wessing will be published in Chili for the first time and will be accompanied by the new publication Koen Wessing: The Art of The Question Made Visible. Click here for the press release of this publication.

© Koen Wessing

to the new site devoted to the concerned photobook. In the future we will post essays on photobooks, mainly documentary, concerned photobooks. The first essay to appear on this blog will be about photobooks on photobooks.

You are welcome to send essays/articles on photographic books, which will be published (if necessary moderated by the editors).