During Paris Photo, an annual international art fair dedicated to photography, nearly 200 galleries and publishers of established and independent titles travel to the City of Light to showcase the work of artists across the medium. In partnership with the not-for-profit photography organization Aperture, the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards honor the importance of the photobook in the ever-evolving landscape of photography. (This year’s winners were just announced.)
Meanwhile, other events also offered new titles and hourly book signings—including Polycopies, a nonprofit fair for independent photography publishing, and Offprint, a fair that features a variety of books from “independent, experimental and socially engaged publishers.”
From one photographer’s Homeric journey to a tender look at Lebanon through its revolution in 2019 and port explosion in 2020, the breadth of topics covered in these works is vast, but what ties them together is the innovation in photo making and storytelling.
Below are some of our favorite titles from this year’s crop at Paris Photo Week.
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Passing Time, Sage Sohier”,”brand”:{“name”:””},”id”:”6553a04b5c1af6c97cc3c42d”,”index”:0,”contentType”:”photo”,”offers”:[]}” data-testid=”GallerySlideWrapper”>
Passing Time, Sage Sohier
For photographer Sage Sohier, 2020 offered time for deep reflection on her craft. When going through her archives, she came across works that were unprinted and previously unseen. The works, spanning from 1979 to 1985, offer a glimpse of what are often referred to as “simpler” times. Sohier herself described the time and the scenes as an era when “time moved more slowly; restlessness led to spontaneous play.” Passing Time is a testament to the value of idle time for community gatherings, childhood imagination, solitude, and photography itself. Sohier herself says of making photographs: “Though asking permission usually changed the dynamic of the situation, interesting things would often emerge when I was allowed to stay for longer than a picture or two.” (Nazraeli Press)
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Somewhere 2017-2023, Sam Youkilis”,”brand”:{“name”:””},”id”:”6553a04b60d80e2627df6ab8″,”index”:1,”contentType”:”photo”,”offers”:[]}” data-testid=”GallerySlideWrapper”>
Somewhere 2017-2023, Sam Youkilis
Somewhere 2017-2023, the highly anticipated first monograph by photographer and filmmaker Sam Youkillis has finally arrived (though he does have two particularly beautiful short zines published by Pomegranate Press, titled Imaginary Maps of the Milky Way and El Mirador). Somewhere feels like a more realized look of Youkilis’s breadth of work. For one, it’s tiny—perhaps alluding to the size of an iPhone, the tool through which his work is most frequently viewed. Full bleed images fill the front and back of nearly 500 pages. In stark comparison to the light weight of an iPhone, the book sits heavy in your hand, giving the imagery a certain gusto that digital viewing cannot compare to. The book is broken into sections categorized by places, colors, temperatures, and emotions—and even includes a nod to designer Bruno Munari’s famed project Supplement to the Italian Dictionary. Overall, the works are evocative of what he’s most known for: celebrating people, scenes, and foods worldwide in commonly known cities and small towns only the well-traveled might know. (Loose Joints Publishing)
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Odyssey, Christopher Anderson”,”brand”:{“name”:””},”id”:”6553a04b720da031da9782cf”,”index”:2,”contentType”:”photo”,”offers”:[]}” data-testid=”GallerySlideWrapper”>
Odyssey, Christopher Anderson
In Christopher Anderson’s Odyssey, expertly printed photos appear almost solarized, giving them a look that one might find only in their dreams. The book, narrative and poetic, takes us on a journey “from the sea to the rocks,” displaying images of rocks parting to angry waves, ruins camouflaged among rocks, and skies. Anderson’s shadow frequently appears in the images, exaggerating the presence of the sun and rooting the work in himself—and also inherently pushing and pulling the reader into the journey as it becomes our shadow, and in turn, our journey too. Perhaps a similar thrust into the narrative that Anderson found himself in while making the work, he says, “As the images took form, I began to recognize some sort of fable. Not a story that I was telling, but one that was being told to me.” (Stanley/Barker)
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The Thing”,”brand”:{“name”:””},”id”:”6553a04b23927aad8fa808af”,”index”:3,”contentType”:”photo”,”offers”:[]}” data-testid=”GallerySlideWrapper”>
The Thing
Each autumn, Photoworks produces a journal organized around a particular theme to dive deep into established and emerging artists’ work, aiming to illustrate such themes and revolt against them. The 2023 entry is The Thing and explores photography’s inextricable tie to objectification and colonization. From the moment you lift the journal, a metallic silver cover offers your own reflection, objectifying and forcing you to confront your own image. The continuation of the pages have the same pressure—from artists working to unlink photography from its traditionally objectifying past. One astonishing example is the work of Sky Hopinka, a Native American artist whose work rebels and overturns the tradition of land survey in photography, reclaiming a cultural perspective on the land that has been denied for centuries. To find such a disruptive and self-reflective journal at Paris Photo is astonishing, and—as the journal hopes to do—it gives space for radical rethinking of timeless themes in a place where they are ever-present. (Photoworks Annual)
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What’s Ours, Myriam Boulos”,”brand”:{“name”:””},”id”:”6553a04cdf0394b37e2e8614″,”index”:4,”contentType”:”photo”,”offers”:[]}” data-testid=”GallerySlideWrapper”>
By Myriam Boulos, Untitled, 2019/Courtesy of Aperture.What’s Ours, Myriam Boulos
What’s Ours is a diaristic look of Lebanon through the lens of Lebanese photographer Myriam Boulos. While the work—which culminates with the 2019 revolution through the 2020 explosion in Beirut—is documentary, it is also deeply personal to Boulos. Many of the photographs feature her friends, family, and places sacred or familiar to her, so a sense of knowing and comfort anchors the narrative of national unrest. Her photographs vibrate with kinetic energy and are swaddled in intimacy, whether they be moments of intimacy or protest. A study on a place at its turning point, Boulos shows that intimacy, belonging, and strength are three of a kind. (Aperture)
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Fashion, Paul Kooiker”,”brand”:{“name”:””},”id”:”6553a04bb8161e6f4de402cd”,”index”:5,”contentType”:”photo”,”offers”:[]}” data-testid=”GallerySlideWrapper”>
By Paul Kooiker/Courtesy of Art Paper Editions.Fashion, Paul Kooiker
What’s most alluring about Fashion, Dutch photographer Paul Kooiker’s newest book, is his signature whimsy and off-putting approach to otherwise traditionally beautiful objects and people. Here, many of the photographs are a step away from what we typically imagine as fashion. The title points to a sense of the word as a verb as well: to fashion something. In this case, to fashion a pair of shoes into snails, a foot into a face, a nude butt through a woven metal chair, and the list goes on. These metamorphoses within his works are what makes this collection of Kooiker’s photos so profoundly new and demanding of pause. (Art Paper Editions)
