From Sam Hutchinson’s haunting publication of found imagery to a book of ’loom photography’ by French textile artist Marie Hazard, here are five highlights from the art and photography book fair
It’s Paris Photo Week and the city is alive with artists, anoraks, gallerists and high net-worth individuals looking for a piece to fit the wall above the bed in the spare room of their summer house in Lake Como.
Photography lends itself to the book like no other medium, and during Paris Photo Week, we’re fortunate enough to be graced with three very different art book fairs. Accident(s), the newest fair taking place at The Cité Internationale des Arts celebrates the atypical, while Polycopies, hosted on a boat on the Port de Solférino caters to photo book purists. However, it is the original – Offprint – which we’re focusing on.
Held at Pavillon de l’Arsenal this year, Offprint Paris runs from 10-13 November, and hosts a global act of artists and publishers across art, architecture, design, humanities and visual culture. Here are some to look out for, along with their latest offerings.
Bronze Age
Celebrating its ten-year anniversary earlier this year, Bronze Age of south London is run by one-half of risograph aficionados PageMasters, Justin Bailey. Bronze Age specialises in riso publications operating in the visual art space between photography and design. Everything is familiar at concept, but left-field in execution. From folklore, to sci-fi to producing a fictional photo book with images taken from Nintendo64 game Pokémon Snap.
The latest release from Bronze Age comes from Leeds-based artist and skateboarder Sam Hutchinson with Watching a Supermodel Sleep on a Plane. A four-colour riso printed publication featuring found imagery depicting the horrors of sponsored content, online media, social control and manipulation of the masses.
Commune
Based out of Tokyo, Commune started as a gallery and shop in 2009 before establishing itself as a publisher in 2013. Appearing at Offprint Paris for the first time, Commune creates the most beautifully produced objects in collaboration with international talent such as Ed Davis and B Thom Stevenson, alongside artists closer to home.
Their latest publication Records Of The Season 2 by Japanese illustrator Saki Obata launched recently at the Tokyo Art Book Fair. The work is clean and simple, yet poignant and emotionally rich.
Sun
Founded in 2014 and based out of New York, Sun focuses on artist publications and editions of the obscure with previous publications including The Black Panther Coloring Book, The Family Acid, 47 Fly Flyers from the early hip hop era in NYC and Sergey Merkurov’s Letters of People. Previous collaborators include Bill Sullivan, Corey Presha, Anthony Tafuro, Dan Cook, Timothy Briner, Charles Johnstone, Aaron McElroy, Yoshi Kametani, Daisuke Yokota and Thomas Hauser.
Court 1520 2020 by Bill Sullivan and Charles Johnstone is their latest release taking the form of ten exhibition catalogues. The two-book set takes the form of a lyrical journal travelling through the histories of the games of lawn tennis, court tennis, racquets, trinquet and squash over the past 500 years.
Shelter Press
Shelter Press is a record label, publisher and curatorial platform founded in 2012 by publisher Bartolomé Sanson and artist Félicia Atkinson. Its multidisciplinary approach weaves across the boundaries of contemporary art, poetry and experimental music. Their latest publication is Spectres III – Ghosts In The Machine, which looks at the roles of AI and machine-learning in music-making.
Zolo Press
Split between Mexico City and Brussels, Zolo Press publishes art, books and editions, and aims to create publications that act as manifestations of artists’ practices; as documentation, as artwork or as exhibition itself.
A self-titled publication by French textile artist Marie Hazard is their latest offering. The book incorporates Hazard’s work in the loom with photography and text to “register the dance of being in and moving through the world”. The book consolidates 158 woven works and nine exhibitions made between 2018 and 2022.