Photobooks of 2019: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi (Chose Commune)
Radiator Theatre by Ina Jang
Ina Jang photographed colourful painted cutout shapes on her New York’s apartment radiator, “which is the first thing to get direct sunlight” – she explains in her statement. The simple and straightforward design serves the book perfectly well. And being obsessed with colours and organic shapes, I think this book naturally hit my soft spot.
Summer Camp by Mark Steinmetz
Summer camps. The excitement, the games, the friendships, the late nights. And Mark Steinmetz the magician. It’s very obviously not only the nostalgia many of us have of summer camps that makes it a strong body of work, but yet again the photographer’s brilliant eye for photographing people in the moment – and just as they are.
Primal Mountain by Yuji Hamada
I’ve known Yuki Hamada’s work for a long time and was wondering when “Primal Mountain” would be published. I was delighted to discover it in Tokyo a week ago, hot off the press, published by Torch Press to coincide an exhibition at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. The printing is outstanding, making the mountains of aluminium – shot both during daytime and after dark, mesmerising.
Campaign Child by Xiaopeng Yuan
Xiaopeng Yuan’s personal body of work picturing Western children in the context of commercial shoots for Chinese kidswear make you feel uncomfortable, in a good way. Yuan creates new narratives, with a hint of surrealism, that somehow reminds me of one of my favourite films, “The Taste of Tea” by Katsuhito Ishii, especially the photograph of the girl emerging from the table cloth.
Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi is a French/Japanese publisher, co-founder and director of independent publishing house Chose Commune, making carefully curated and crafted books in the fields of photography and works on paper.
Images: top – Primal Mountain by Yuji Hamada, below – Campaign Child by Xiaopeng Yuan
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