Photo book of the year?
The only thing that keeps me from declaring Strangely Familiar the best photo book of the year is knowing that Amy Stein's Domesticated comes out soon. But this book should be on everyone's short list.Michal Chelbin's images of acrobats, matadors, wrestlers, and cadets transcend the "Hey, look at the freaks" trap of Diane Arbus imitators. They're entirely fresh, original, and gorgeous meditations on adolescence, family dynamics, performance, old Europe, and more. Astoundingly, every image is strong enough to be a stand-alone (whereas many photo series have images that, out of context, don't look like much). I also love the way the series creates a world, rather than just making the same conceptual point again and again.
Strangely Familiar is available from Aperture now, though it's cheaper on Amazon. My advice: buy two copies -- one to keep pristine, and one to thumb through again and again and again.
P.S. If you want to have some of these images on your wall, Aperture is selling two limited edition prints.
Labels: Amy Stein, Domesticated, Michal Chelbin, Strangely Familiar
posted by Lisa Hunter @ 9:46 AM
5 Comments:
Lisa:
Agreed. I have the book. It is great! Same goes for her prints at Aperture. They just got a new one (the girl in front of the car) and can be purchased right now for only $750.00.Anybody interested contact my friend Kellie McLaughlin, manager of limited editions. One left for that price then it goes up!
They were also on display at the Aperture booth, NY Photo Festival this weekend in DUMBO.
Her photos are stunning!
She is having a solo show coming up here in Manhattan.
Another to keep an eye on is Robin Schwartz (doing a book also for Aperture in Sept.) Great photos of her daughter. She is doing a print with them as well.She was also in the exhibit curated by Tim Barber at the NY Photo Festival.
Competition competition... Photography is such a vast territory, it's almost naive to declare ONE photobook of the year. "Documentary photobook of the year", "Fine art photobook of the year" etc etc. The list would go on.
Btw, not every one has blogger accounts. The only result of imposing a blogger account for comments is less comments. You have no added security and no anti-spam benefits. My $.02.
I take your point Tome. It's just that when I fall in love with a book, I fall hard. (BTW, I'm also convinced my husband is the greatest guy in the world.)
haha, touche. with that disclaimer i can accept the "one" book of the year title.
:)
Lisa: An update. The new photo from Milchal that I told you is up on the Aperture site.
Amy Stein won a book award at the NY Photo Festival . The info is on my most recent blog post.
You were right on the money about Amy!
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