november-books

Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Dennis Stock / James Dean Revisited

84 pages of B&W photographs of James Dean, all taken by Magnum photographer Dennis Stock on a commission for Life Magazine. Shows a different side to the popular public image of the Dean. Excellent.

Images collected by Tillmans from 1990-1999, incorporated with his own photographs. One of his best books.

One of the best books on youth culture ever. "For decades the work of Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger was shrouded in obscurity. In the 1950s he published numerous homoerotic photographs under the pseudonym "Jim" in Der Kreis (The Circle), the legendary international gay magazine that featured highly sophisticated photographs by, among others, George Platt Lynes and Herbert List. Weinberger was one of the first queer photographers to show his often working-class models posing in their everyday surroundings. For Weinberger, eroticism was always grounded in the quotidian-a revolutionary and courageous approach back in the 1950s.In the late 1950's Weinberger started to develop an obsessive interest in the nascent biker culture and its proud and self-confident celebration of the body, embarking on a longtime study of their lifestyle. In many ways, Weinberger's photographs will remind viewers of Kenneth Anger's cult classic Scorpio Rising. Weinberger's photographs are a unique document both of pre-Stonewall gay culture and postwar youth culture and its cycles. His erotic and provocative photographs are imbued with a mischievous sense of humor that makes them as vibrant and vital today as they were when they were first taken." Astounding.

Very scarce- on account of it being banned shortly after it's release. One of the best books on gangs and gang culture by the great Yan Morvan- who is more of a journalist or a war correspondant than a classic photographer. "Yan Morvan has been documenting gangs in France's suburbs for 40 years, he's followed the Hell's Angels, Skinheads and even serial killer Guy Georges, who took him hostage in 1995 and tortured him for three weeks. This experience forced Morvan to call it quits but, in 2000, he released the book Gangs Story, providing a retrospective of his work." From the bikers of the seventies, skinheads, 50s kids etc to current banlieu crews they're all here. Morvan really hung out with his subjects, so there's lots of very personal stuff, it's a real insight into peoples lives. Crews, firearms, drugs, junkies, sex, corpses and the like. Hundereds of brilliant and candid photographs. One of the best.

Scarce. Super beautiful folio of Antonio's 60s work. Lovely text by Bill Cunningham, followed by lots of nice pictures (by Cunningham too) and then page after page of beautiful work. So good.

Very scarce. Wonderful large format overview of Lopez and his time in NY. Has work for Fiorucci, Bloomingdales, Vogue Italia, his photographs of Divine, Grace Jones (some later published in Instamatics), and if that wasn't enough- lots of pictures of him by the mighty Bill Cunningham- with Cathy Dahnmen, Warhol, Jerry Hall, Paloma Picasso, Lagerfeld, Alain Delon and so on. wow.