5 Books

Fukushima

by Antoine D' Agata

Magnum photographer Antoine D’Agata is known for his uncompromising images of addiction, sex and emotional darkness, and this book is often seen as an outlier in his oeuvre. But, it’s a document of the abandoned buildings in Fukushima, Japan, just after the nuclear catastrophe there in 2011 and as such, D’Agata’s subject here is typical – it’s transgression – the crossing of an invisible border from safety into risk.

Imperial Courts

by Dana Lixenberg

A magisterial document of the residents of Imperial Courts housing project in South Central LA, made over a period of more than two decades. Children grow older, reach adulthood, become parents. Teenagers appear and then are gone, confined in prison or disappeared. Disaffection is borne out, but celebrations happen, too.

Eyes that Look at the Sky

by Sean and Seng

This book is a beautiful and refined object that mirrors the travel journal genre. Self-published by photography duo Sean and Seng, it captures the time they spent on Rapa Nui, Polynesia, just before the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of us have an image in our minds of what the statues on the island look like, even if we haven’t been there, but Sean and Seng show us something different – their personal response to a very spiritual place. One that, at times, is bathed in a rose light, at others, recedes into the dark spaces of dusk. Sean and Seng’s friend, writer Nadifa Mohamed, contributes a specially commissioned poem.

Amateurs & Lovers

by Nikolay Bakharev

Books are portals to other worlds. Amateurs and Lovers takes you to Russia in the late-Soviet years, when nude photography was forbidden. Bakharev made the sensual and optimistic images that appear in this refined publication (from Dashwood, New York) in secrecy. At the time of their making, they were intended to be made manifest in the world only as a single print for the pictured subject. It is an honour and a joy for us to be able to see them now, too.

Head Shots

by Aura Rosenberg

Artist Aura Rosenberg’s Head Shots series was made in the early 90s – a pre-internet time. A collection of black and white close-ups of male faces, often with their eyes closed, or lips parted. Perhaps a smile. Men caught in ecstasy, men at climax? It’s not clear. Lynne Tillman and Gary Indiana contribute writing to the book. It’s introduced by Rosenberg’s husband, John Miller, who says: ‘an overhaul of masculine portraiture is long overdue’. We find artists Mike Kelley and John Baldessari amongst these ‘portraits’. Whether they are documents of a ‘real’ climax or not, might not be the point. Rosenberg alerts us instead to the idea that all sex is, in some way, performed.