Folio by Viviane Sassen

The 1990s marked the beginning of a new generation that preferred experimentation over convention, favoring a DIY approach to art-making that was in keeping with the grunge ethos. While studying for an MFA at the Royal Academy in Arnhem, photographer Viviane Sassen and friends staged fashion shoots at home, exhibited their work in squats, and created zines to share it and build community. Shortly after her father’s death, Sassen created her first handmade photo book from these works in 1996; now she revisits this moment of her “birth” as a photographer with Folio by Viviane Sassen (Note Note Éditions). The book is a portrait of the artist as a young woman entering adulthood with a vision all her own, dissolving the illusory boundaries between art, photography and fashion with a sparkling mix of intimacy, seduction and mystery to intoxicating effect.

Read our interview with Viviane Sassen Here.

Gregory CrewsonWalter Moser (ed.)

Photographer since the mid-80s Gregory Crewson has created fascinating tableaux of contemporary American life in the majestic expanse of the New England landscape, unfolding like scenes from a dream. Driven by the search for something beyond our reach, Crewdson skillfully combines elements of auteur cinema, Old Master painting, staged photography and mid-20th century realism with masterful effect. Each large-scale image is conceived and executed as a small film production, prepared months in advance with the participation of dozens of specialists. Now the artist’s first retrospective, Gregory Crewson (The Albertina Museum / Prestel), The book was published to accompany a major exhibition at the Albertina, which is on view until September 8. Curator Walter Moser seamlessly weaves a visual chronology that brings together more than 300 photographs from nine groups of works that explore the exquisite tensions of fear, desire and paradox in post-industrial America.

Read our interview with Gregory Crewson Here.

Tee A Corinne: A forest fire between usCharlotte Flint (ed.)

In a world that did not want to see lesbians, the photographer, artist and writer Tee A Corinne (1943-2006) was not forgotten. She dedicated her life to making visible what many fear: female desire that exists beyond the male gaze. Over the course of her life, she wrote 15 books, three paperback novels and published seven volumes of works on the subject of eroticism. Now curator Charlotte Flint is delving deep into the artist’s photo archive to publish the new book. Tee A Corinne: A forest fire between us (MACK), a selection of which will be shown at Webber 939 in Los Angeles in September. The book traces Corinne’s unique career at the height of second-wave feminism, working as an openly queer woman despite the open discrimination lesbians faced, reminding us that play and pleasure remain radical acts of liberation in a heteronormative society.

Read our article about Tee A Corinne Here.

Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture by Ivan McClellan

In August 2015 Photographer Ivan McClellan attended the Roy LeBlanc Invitational, the oldest black rodeo in the United States, and immediately felt at home among the barbecues, line dancing and hip-hop music. Over the next decade, he documented the community inside and outside the arena, and created an indelible portrait for his first monograph, Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture (Damiani Books). The book is conceived as a “day at the rodeo,” beginning early in the morning on the ranch, then moving on to the daytime parades and festivities before the main event begins after sunset. McClellan’s striking landscapes, intimate portraits and electrifying action shots evoke the spirit of the Wild West and the mythical cowboy archetype that owes much to the emancipated black cowboys who built the nation from the ground up.

Karen 1979 by Steven Cuffie

After the death of their father, photographer Steven Cuffie (1949-2014), his adult children Marcus and Morgan began digging through their father’s personal archive and discovered a wealth of portraits from the ’70s and ’80s. Among them was a series of intimate black-and-white photographs of a young black woman named Karen. The photos, which were first exhibited at New York Life Gallery in 2022, were collected in the new zine. Steven Cuffie: Karen 1979. Consisting of only 26 images, Karen 1979 is a sensual meditation on untold stories, imbued with an air of mystery that discretion brings. There is a delicate sense of ambiguity that speaks without words, inviting the imagination to engage in a story that can never be fully told, but is felt in these encounters between artist and muse.

Read our article about Steven Cuffie Here.

The African gaze: photography, cinema and power by Amy Sall

The history of photography and European colonization are inextricably linked in the 19th century. The medium was used to advocate foreign interference in sovereign countries in the global South. But the 20th century ushered in a revolution whose time had come. Across Africa, photographers and filmmakers seized the means of production and documented their communities through independence as new nations emerged. In recent years, pioneering photographers such as Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta, James Barnor, Samuel Fosso and Sanlé Sory have achieved global recognition that has largely eluded their peers. With The African Gaze Photography, Cinema and Power (Thames & Hudson) Author, researcher and archivist Amy Sall brings together the work of 25 photographers and 25 filmmakers in a masterful compendium of art, film and cultural history that evokes the warmth and wonder of a family photo album.

Collective Study, Study No. 5 by Goldwin 0

In a culture that idolises individualism and hierarchy, collectivism is a radical act of solidarity. Education has taught us to think of learning as a solitary pursuit, isolated in the mind as the intellect, a mere silo of thought. But what if there was a way to transform knowledge and understanding into wisdom through a cooperative approach? The key here is to Collective Study, Study No. 5 by Goldwin 0, led by OK-RM (InOtherWords). Published in both English and Japanese and illustrated with 384 color plates, the book brings together work by participants such as Lila Matsumoto, Karl Nawrot, and Nur Abbas to imagine a new paradigm for a future world where we create spaces for shared learning. Here, all disciplines coexist to illuminate new forms of practice that reflect a deep respect for the inherent interconnectedness of life itself.