David Campany esplora gli aspetti piú profondi del medium fotografico. Attraverso l'attenta selezione di oltre 120 fotografie - contemporanee e storiche, celebri o sconosciute, sempre sorprendenti - Campany ci invita a dialogare con l'unicità di ogni immagine, con la sua essenza sfuggente e misteriosa, in grado di attivare in chi la osserva infinite interpretazioni e pensieri, consci e inconsci. Perché «è nella natura delle immagini, di tutte le immagini, essere indisciplinate e trascendere il significato in modi che sono anarchici, elusivi, enigmatici e ambigui », ed è quindi importante «non tanto cosa pensiamo delle fotografie quanto come pensiamo ad esse», e cosa accade nel momento in cui guardiamo. «Quand'ero studente, trascorsi un pomeriggio con Susan Sontag, l'autrice di Sulla fotografia, tuttora il libro piú letto sull'argomento. Ammiravo moltissimo il suo lavoro, ma dopo circa un'ora di conversazione mi chiese, curiosamente: 'Cos'è che ti preoccupa dei miei scritti sulla fotografia?' La rispettavo abbastanza da essere sincero. 'Non parli a sufficienza di nessuna immagine in particolare', risposi. 'È vero, - ammise. - Il mio libro riguarda piú la fotografia come fenomeno, artistico e sociale'. Restò un attimo in silenzio, poi sorrise. 'Forse un giorno sarai tu a scrivere un libro intitolato Sulle fotografie'».

'Di fotografia si parla spesso a livello amatoriale, e del resto ci sono tanti fotografi amatori. Ma ci sono sempre state anche voci più articolate, capaci di guardare oltre l'ovvio, di non farsi ingannare dalle distrazioni, di andare al di là della superficie per dirci qualcosa sugli aspetti più profondi di questo medium. Sono le voci di veri creatori di immagini'. Il critico e curatore di mostre David Campany ha chiesto a una serie di artisti di fama mondiale di parlare del loro passato, delle fasi creative che hanno attraversato, del loro rapporto con la fotografia e con la realtà. Sono conversazioni che trascendono la dimensione della semplice intervista per svelare la stretta connessione tra arte e fotografia, tra fotografia e mondo, tra pensiero e parola.

For her fifth book with Steidl, Mona Kuhn has entered the heart of the American desert and returned with a sequence of pictures that is seductive, enigmatic and a little unsettling. Private proposes a world in which concrete reality and the imaginary are one. Plants and animals on the edge of survival, sun-drenched landscapes and wind-sculpted earth are intercut with a series of nudes that push Kuhn's renowned sensitivity to human form into unexpected directions. The result is a book somewhere between the poetry of TS Eliot, the cinema of Robert Altman, and a lucid dream.

The most comprehensive book available on one of today's most important visual artists, this volume features images from Stan Douglas's acclaimed series as well as stills from a new video work and a stage production. Stan Douglas is one of Canada's leading filmmakers and installation artists. His work, which has been widely exhibited throughout the world and at three Venice Biennales, touches on themes of modernism, politics, race, music, cinema, and theater. This book features images and stills from Douglas's most recent works: Artists' Cabin, Olde Curio Shop, Kardynal Shoes, Tosi Foods, Crowds and Riots, Midcentury Studio, and Disco Angola. It also includes images from two much-anticipated works: a new video piece and Helen Lawrence, a cinematic stage production. A series of essays discussing Douglas's influences and themes as well as texts by the artist himself round out this impressive book.

'Born in New York in 1928, William Klein is one of the leading photographers of the postwar era, as well as an influential filmmaker, painter, and graphic artist. This astonishing book, selected and designed by Klein himself, captures the essence of his life's work. It includes selections from his powerful photo books on New York, Moscow, Rome, Tokyo, and Paris; his dynamic fashion photography that used the city as a stage for glamour; stills and posters from his bitingly satirical films, including his send up of fashion magazines, Who Are You, Polly Magoo; and the graphically powerful painted contact sheets that he has exhibited around the world. Klein, whose achievement puts him on a level with Robert Frank, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn, lives in Paris and is revered in Europe. This is the first comprehensive book on his work published in the United States in twenty years. '--

Unlike many other artistic media, photography's origins are well documented, as are its ever-changing technologies and applications. Written by an international team of experts, this definitive history of photography looks at every step of the field's dynamic evolution, period by period and movement by movement. Each key genre is chronologically presented within its social, economic, and political context, along with close analysis of specially selected works that best exemplify the characteristics of the period. With more than 500 gorgeous examples in black and white and color, the book explores in-depth virtually every aspect of the medium since its first public demonstration in 1839 to the latest innovations: from early portraits and the birth of photojournalism to travel photography and the mapping of the world; from the Pictorialists to the avant-garde; from celebrity and fashion to documentary and landscape. Along the way readers will learn why some photographs are considered iconic, and why the medium as an art form continues to challenge and enthrall us.