IRÈNE ATTINGER

Double page from: Fait: Koweit 1991, Éditions Hazan, 1992, Sophie Ristelhueber

From January to February 2020, Fotogalleriet will look more closely at the photobook as an exhibition space in Le Book Club, a show unravelling in five chapters over five weeks. In light of this, we reignite our interview series looking closely at book production. Here are the French photobook-expert Irène Attinger’s thoughts:

The last decade has seen more photobooks than the last 170 years together according to the PhotoBook Museum, a seminar at c/o Berlin last year, Photobooks: RESET, started from the premise that the photobook is in crisis. What do you think, is the photobook in trouble?

In the mid-1950s, two books created a new paradigm for the photobook, and began its golden age– two books featuring photographic works designed specifically for the format: William Klein’s Life Is Good & Good for You in New York (Paris, Seuil, 1956) and Robert Frank’s The Americans (Paris, Delpire, 1958), both of which are milestones in the history of photography. Each in its own way invents a new form of photographic writing. Far from being simple messengers of images, these books propose, through their layouts, a veritable reevaluation of images, which are arranged in sequences or in pairs. The impact of every photograph depends on how it relates to others through its format and as part of a succession of images. As in cinematic montage, an inter-imagery comes to the fore. 

​In the early 1960s, the deployment of a sequence or several sequences of photographs, whose meaning crystallises through images alone or with the aid of text and captions, became the paradigm for many photobooks. The photobook has become increasingly autonomous and has gained recognition as a work of art in its own right. This is underscored, starting in the 2000s, by the proliferation of works about photobooks.

​Photography is facing an unprecedented mutation. The smartphone permanently allows everyone to produce images and disseminate them. The consequence of this multiplication is the trivialisation of the image. In such a context, the photobook is struggling to find an economy, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost its interest.

Trolly – New Orleans, 1955. From The Americans © Robert Frank.

There are books we keep coming back to, as references and because a second or third reading can give new insights. Is there a book (or are there books) that you keep coming back to?

While a book’s scarcity and its market value may arouse a collector’s interest, this has no bearing on its merits from the perspective of the development of the art of photography. While the publication of a ‘coffee-table book’ may signal the artist’s status, it’s clear that the majority of seminal books don’t belong in this category. Some of the most important books, such as Bernard Plossu's le voyage mexicain, have a very modest appearance. 

​As the founder, in 1996, of the library of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie(MEP) – one of the most important libraries in Europe dedicated to photography – I work daily with a large number of books. Today, among the books to which I return I’d like to cite Ed Ruscha, Every Building on the Sunset Strip (self-published, 1966), Ed Van der Elsken, Sweet Life (Harry N. Abrams, 1966), Hosoe Eikoh, Ordeal by Roses Reedited (Shueisha, 1971), Diane Arbus, Diane Arbus (Aperture, 1972), Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (Aperture, 1986), Sophie Ristelhueber, Fait (Hazan, 1992), Anais Lopez, The Migrant (self-published 2018). Tomorrow the list could be different.

The Migrant, Anais Lopez, 2018.

In your field, what’s the purpose of the book for you?

Books, particularly monographs, built around a distinct theme present an artist’s point of view, a personal universe, but also attest to a presence in the world anchored in time and space. The subjects covered may be of historical importance or reflect social phenomena in a given place and period, or reveal a singular and intimate space within. Nevertheless, every work has a relationship with the universal, since they all bear witness to the collective and individual consequences of the impact of the world on human consciousness, as well as to the photographer’s capacity to change our perception of the world. Dated and validated by the artist, such books allow the creation of archives. Whereas the internet is just a world of flux where dating and authority are easily lost, the library of the MEP is the living memory of fine international photography publishing from 1950 up to now; it currently holds over 32,000 volumes. 

​With my book, Une Bibliothèque: Maison Européenne de la Photographie co-published by Actes Sud, my intention was to show the richness and the diversity of photobooks published in different countries and representing various cultures, and thus to contribute to a historical survey of the photobook and, by extension, to a history of the development of the art of photography. My selection emphasises monographs built around a distinct theme, whether social or political, rather than exhibition catalogues or comprehensive publications devoted to a single artist. This relationship finds an expression in different cultural areas in Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America and Africa. The presence of Japanese photographers is important. To this day, many Japanese photographers privilege the book format, which they consider to be the ultimate vehicle for their work. I also wanted to showcase French publishing, which is very vibrant and, at least as far as the last sixty years are concerned, often overlooked in publications released in the United Kingdom and the United States. And I wanted to focus on the presence of women who are so often left out in the world of photography, which remains a very masculine field. In order not to approach these unique works through a singular prism, I wrote brief presentations about the selected books, paying ample attention to the protagonists of the books’ creation: photographers, writers, editors.

​Finally I would also mention the book that Jörg Brockmann and I published on the occasion of the first edition of a new festival in Geneva (ARCOOP Wall Project, 2019) around the theme of Love(s). To me, it’s more than a catalogue because of the paper, the editing and the presentation of the series by the twenty-six photographers in the exhibition.