2022 Book Awards

The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné 1963-1965 focuses on Warhol’s film works from the years 1963-65 during a time when the renowned artist produced hundreds of film and video works – short and long, silent and sound, scripted and improvised. The book features over 100 individual works which are catalogued in detail and combined with enlightening essays that cover Warhol’s influences, his experimentation with film, source material, working methods and technical innovations, as well as his engagement with the people he filmed and how they came to life on the screen.

“A monument as much as a book, and far more than a catalogue, although the textual history here is often almost as fascinating as the films, and the behind-the-scenes story- telling. Each word and image across these 500 pages adds something to the tale of two years of remarkable creativity.”
Pamela Hutchinson

Film scholar and critic Erika Balsom explores James Benning’s 2004 masterful work of American avant-garde cinema, Ten Skies. The film consists of ten 10-minute static takes of the sky, projecting the viewer’s gaze upwards and mind to a state of contemplative reflection. Balsom’s study elucidates the hidden intricacies of meaning that lie beneath the minimalist surface of Benning’s film, probing into the mind of the artist and offering critical clarity through philosophical and art historical touchstones.

“A model of long-form film criticism with broad horizons: evocative, discursive, sensitive and sharp. This is a book that will encourage the reader not just to seek out the work of James Benning, but also to look upwards with fresh eyes.”
Pamela Hutchinson

Professor of Film and Media at Concordia University, Haidee Wasson charts a compelling and original history of film through her documentation of the twentieth-century rise of portable film projectors. Reorienting the history of cinema away from the glow of the big screen, Everyday Movies considers the technology that democratised media and cinematic experimentation and how such devices radically altered the course of American culture.

“Wasson’s book explores the long and vital history of portable media and its uses. She argues persuasively that portable projectors were the technology that normalised the moving image within homes, schools and workplaces, and first enabled viewers to con- trol their own programming. As a piece of research it is incredibly impressive in scope, scale and detail. As a book it is a pleasure to read.”
Dr Melanie Selfe

“A beautifully researched and contextualised compilation of the female voices that resounded through early film culture. Not just the handful of well-known names but also the pseudonymous and obscure. And of course it is deliciously readable.”
Pamela Hutchinson

“Ellis delivers a fascinating history of aerial views and the new perspectives and often very visceral viewing experiences they offered in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The connections to contemporary phenomena, including VR and drones, are clear but not over-played, and the richly detailed and illustrated research allows the reader to under- stand the impact of these largely forgotten viewing technologies as ways of seeing the world anew.”
Dr Melanie Selfe

“Fortmueller’s book puts the precarious working conditions of today’s jobbing actors into historical context and argues for the central importance of this freelance workforce at all stages of the American screen industries. It draws together archival research and contemporary interviews and fieldwork, with a wealth of scholarship on film history and creative industries, weaving these elements into clear and engaging prose.”
Dr Melanie Selfe

“Galt’s text explores an important and under researched mode of popular cinema and national myth, by approaching the many filmic adaptations of the Pontianak, linking these fables to pre-colonial and post-colonial conceptions of nationhood. Alluring Monsters is an accessible and detailed journey through the origins of these Malaysian ghosts which serves to offer an important retelling of global Horror narratives.”
Matthew Barrington

“The prehistory of a filmmaker, bringing Billy Wilder’s voice, and the world that shaped him, brilliantly to life. The personality and aslant perspective that makes his films so irresistible is already in place here.”
Pamela Hutchinson

“Outside of Satyajit Ray, filmmakers crucial to developing a national Indian art cinema such as Mani Kaul, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, remain less visible in canons of post war modernist cinema, and Majumdar addresses their importance in establishing a national Indian cinema, post independence, whilst critiquing the nation building world cinema project, through a close reading of this fertile period of filmmaking.”
Matthew Barrington

“A fitting object to reflect the artists critical engagements with questions of post-coloni- alism, national history, artistic creation and radical politics. Xenogenesis provides the reader with an excellent route through the films of the Otolith Group.”
Matthew Barrington

What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843-1999 sheds light on photobooks created by women from diverse backgrounds, and addresses the glaring gaps and omissions in current photobook history—in particular, the lack of access, support and funding for non-Western women and women of colour. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs of classic bound books, portfolios, personal albums, unpublished books, zines and scrapbooks, ranging from well-known  publications to the more obscure.

“Rigorously researched, generously illustrated, and ingeniously designed, this is an extraordinary publication which not only fills an essential gap and missing chapter in photographic scholarship, but importantly foregrounds the creative pursuits of a diverse constituency of women, whose significant contributions to global photobook historiography still too often remains invisible.”
Renée Mussai

Agata explores an intimate three year collaboration between photographer Bieke Depoorter and her photographic subject Agata Kay, who she met in a strip club in Paris. It tells two stories – one of a sex worker searching for her identity and the other of a young woman continuously  questioning her role as a photographer. The two women were able to ask questions they each had regarding intimacy, identity, performance and representation. The book includes a combination of images, handwritten letters and personal notes. Work from this project is on show at C/O Berlin until 9th September 2022.

“This photobook stood out from the submissions in telling an intimate road trip story based on a truly collaborative project between the photographer, Bieke Depoorter, and her photographic subject, Agata Kay, who she met in a strip club in Paris. It…tells of their complicated friendship as ‘performer’ and ‘photographer’.
Dr Lena Fritsch

Peter Eleey and Eva Respini have created the first scholarly publication about the artist Deana Lawson, surveying fifteen years of her photography coinciding with a touring exhibition currently at MoMA PS1 until 5 September, 2022. Lawson investigates and challenges conventional representations of black identities in the African American and African diaspora. Whether in posed photographs or assembled collages, Lawson’s work channels broader ideas about personal and social histories of black life, love, sexuality, family, and spiritual beliefs. The book includes Lawson’s personal family photographs and archives of vernacular images that have informed her work.

“compelling and complex – a great selection of Deana Lawson’s bold, carefully chore- graphed tableaux are collected in this comprehensive exhibition catalogue, centering Black bodies in intimate scenes infused with raw sensuality, spirituality, and subjectivi- ty…continuously blurring – and refusing – the boundaries between personal andsocial histories, staged portraiture, social documentary, and vernacular photography …”
Renée Mussai

“Rhiannon Adam’s complex artist book is based on her three-months stay on [Pitcairn] island…It is an impressive in-depth research project that pictures Pitcairn as a place of stark contrast: a romantic natural paradise on the one hand and an isolated small human community with dark secrets on the other.”
Dr Lena Fritsch

“The late Dr Doris Derby was a remarkable chronicler of her time – this crucial debut monograph offers rare insight and visual knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement through the committed lens – and rich lived experience – of an accomplished and long overlooked Black woman photographer, educator and activist who has dedicated her entire life to the movement: a ground-breaking, and essential resource for future generations.”
Renée Mussai

“A staggering body of work documenting Northern Ireland between the 1970s and 80s, a period known as The Troubles. Described by the author himself as a ‘paper movie’, it could best be described as a visual tour-de-force and one that asks a lot from the reader given it often pushes the limits of a traditional photobook.”
Simon Roberts

“Simply a stunning publication, from the exquisite photographs and rich collaboration between the authors (a photographer and architect) to the inspired use of design and impressive production values. It’s an uplifting and immersive experience to make your way through this book, which explores the interplay between natural sunlight, vernacular architecture and everyday life in the West African nation of Burkina Faso.”
Simon Roberts

“A profound meditation on identity, memory, and belonging … that brings together archival and contemporary imagery – and text – in inspired and confounding ways… This is an extraordinary and very special conceptual photobook – exquisitely produced, and deeply touching.”
Renée Mussai

“Over a period of six years, Kusters researched and photographed a blue sky at 1078 locations of former Nazi concentration camps across Europe…Kusters’ photographs of blue skies and his beautifully designed blue-turquoise photobook emphasise the im- possibility of comprehending the horrors of the Holocaust – they are thought-provok- ing and raise questions about history, memory and the medium of photography.”
Dr Lena Fritsch

“This hard-hitting publication by Jérôme Sessini documents Ukraine’s uprising between 2014-2017 and questions the hypocrisy and misery of a conflict happening on the edge of Europe. The book takes on added significance with today’s war being waged by Russia on its neighbour, and particularly haunting are a selection of photographs Sessini took in Mariupol, a city which has seen untold misery in the past few months.”
Simon Roberts