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Ikuru Kuwajima

“I, Oblomov“

Photobookfest Moscow & Pareto-Print, 2017

Edition of 500 copies

21 x 18 cm, 144 pages, a special pillow-like book jacket

“I, Oblomov” is an ode to the novel “Oblomov” by the Russian writer Ivan Goncharov. More than 150 years later, it still remains a key to deciphering the Russian mentality, which for centuries has both perplexed and captivated foreign travelers in the region. The novel’s hero, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, is a wealthy landowner living in St. Petersburg. He is a humane and gentle man, but above all he is passive in the extreme. Day after day, he lies on the couch, absent-mindedly receiving a stream of visitors. Oblomov’s strange lethargy continues to be a powerful force in Russia today. In this project, Kuwajima offers his own interpretation of this distinctly Russian phenomenon through a series of self-portraits and interior photographs taken over the course of his travels in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

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Julia Borissova

“Red Giselle”

Self-published, 2017

Limited edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

15 x 20,5 cm, cardboard cover, handmade, 32 pages including 2 transparent pages

15 x 20 cm postcard, unique handmade collage “Red Giselle” is inspired by the tragic life of the famous Russian ballerina Olga Spessivtseva whose stage career begun in Petrograd during the time of the Revolution. Her contemporaries called her Red Giselle because this role gave the immortality for her and at the same time became her biggest spiritual tragedy.

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“Stone Poem“

Varvara Kuzmina

Published by Metenkov’s House Museum of Photography, Yekaterinburg, 2017

Edition of 70 signed copies, 13 x 17 cm, 36 pages

From project statement: “Stone penetrated contemporary Ural cities, I turn to such objects in public spaces. Stone is on the streets, in the backyards, on squares, in the parks, at the basements of the houses. It subordinates urban landscape in some way. Thus, the Ural identity is refracted in daily routes, and the city is strengthened by the power of the stone.“

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“Calculation” by Igor Mukhin

Published by Treemedia in 2017

Limited edition of 55 signed copies, each includes digital print also signed by author.

190 pages, 17 x 23 cm

The book invites to look at how the author works with control prints, to trace the randomness and regularity of this process, from shooting commercial portraits to diary shooting for himself.

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Lilia Li-Mi-Yan

“Nausea”

dienacht Publishing, 2016

Edition of 200 copies

13 x 17 cm, 84 pages + 8 cover uncut pages

In “Nausea” Lilia Li-mi-yan works with the theme of physicality and partial objects. She creates intricate tactile rhymes. Nausea is a reaction of organism when you have absorbed too much; the food you swallowed has been split but could not be digested. Here Nausea as an idea of corporal experience which was integrated by Sartre, where he says that we feel our body only through trauma. Nausea as a method to hear one’s body, its outgoing signal. A signal that urges you to cognition. Only that which is rough, bristle, wrinkle and breakes off – speaks. Something that wants to be named.

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Fyodor Telkov

“36 views”

Published by Ediciones Anómalas & Comunidad de Madrid, 2016

Edition of 1500

32 x 21,5 cm, 88 pages, clothbound hardcover with jacket

The Project became the winner of the Fotocanal Photography Book Competition. The book goes back to the renowned series of prints of the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai “36 views of Mount Fuji”. Russian photographer Telkov has captured images of the small mining town of Degtyarsk in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk, at each end of which we find two huge waste heaps. The two mountains of dead rock are visible from all angles. The city grew with copper mining — an activity that left its mark on the landscape — and its consequences.

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Leonid Zhdanov

“Instants. Kasian Goleyzovsky”

Publishing house “Planeta” («Планета»), 1972, 160 pages, edition of 20000 copies, 20,5 x 26 cm

The book is dedicated to the remarkable Soviet choreographer Kasyan Yaroslavich Goleyzovsky. It tells about the last decade of the ballet master's activity. The author of the publication is Leonid Zhdanov, a dancer of the Bolshoi Theater, a pupil and follower of Goleyzovsky. The title — “Instants” — is not by chance. Goleyzovsky believed that the moments of the highest emotional intension reveal the most intimate in a person. Based on this position, Zhdanov builds his book. He proves that for Goleyzovsky the moments of creativity were such instants. The choreographer believed that the art of dance is built on associations. And behind these words there is a whole aesthetic program. Associations in the creativity of the choreographer are born by nature.

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“Games and people. Games of the XXIV Olympiad. Seoul 1988″ Published by “Physcal training and sports” / «Физкультура и спорт», 1989 Edition of 40 000 copies 22 x 29 cm, 240 pages, dust jacket, hard cover Edited by Anatoly Tchaikovsky

Эта позднесоветская пропагандистская фотокнига посвящена Олимпийским играм в Сеуле и участию в них советской сборной. Развороты издания выстроены в манере редактирования, довольно типичной для альбомов того времени, по крайней мере если говорить о спортивных публикациях. Так, здесь зачастую можно встретить на соседних страницах рифмующиеся между собой жесты. В одном случае они точно вступают в диалог (ноги падающего каратиста против ног прыгуна). В другом — создают ощущение движения по кругу (ладони судьи переходят в устремленный вверх палец рефери, который как бы заканчивается уколом шпаги). Серийная съемка показана полиэкранией, представители одного вида спорта — симметричным сопоставлением, а драматичные крупные и средние планы выводятся на разворот, впрочем, не всегда удачно, что приводит к комичному эффекту оторванных конечностей у гимнасток или силачей.

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“China: People and walls”

«Планета» / Planeta, 1981

Edition of 15 000 copies, 360 pages, 16 х 34 cm

Designed by Boris Zhuravsky

Выпущенную издательством «Планета» книгу «Китай: Стены и люди» в содержательном отношении нельзя назвать экспериментальной. Тема публикации — опыт социально-экономического развития КНР, который был признан «тяжелым уроком, показывающим, к чему ведет извращение принципов социализма как во внутренней, так и в международной политике». Этот увесистый том — многостраничный критический опус в адрес Мао Цзэдуна. Но главное то, как организован в нем публицистический идеологизированный текст. Он дается не только статьями и комментариями на фотографиях. Тему острых ножниц пропаганды художник Борис Журавский представил пунктирными отрезными линиями и цитатами из отредактированных биографий партийных лидеров Китая. В другом случае слова складываются в человеческий профиль.

Оформление текста в целом довольно эклектично, но еще большее многообразие демонстрирует визуальная часть издания. Журавский все время работает с приемом масштабирования и кадрирования — уменьшает и увеличивает одни и те же изображения, проводит их через всю книгу. Он активно обыгрывает и газетную эстетику, стилизуя кадры с помощью растра. Он обращается к методу исключения, когда оформляет развороты о цензуре, кромсает снимки и превращает их в геометрические фигуры, подобно тому, как это делали до него Лисицкий, Родченко и Степанова. Наконец, он создает саркастичные, порой карикатурные фотоколлажные композиции. Вкупе с необычным форматом — книга была узкой, вытянутой, но при этом грандиозной — это делает «Китай: Стены и люди» совершенно уникальной публикацией.

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Anna Block & Anastasia Lobanova

“Last days of snow”

Self-published, 2016

40 pages, 15 x 23 cm, manually stitched, edition of 60 copies

Dive into the murky depths of female sensuality. Beautiful photo zine of Moscow-based Anna Block and Anastasia Lobanova. This is the second zine project of Anna.

From photographers’ description: “Like a wave penetrating the sand we get closer to each other until we irrevocably merge. You stroke and flay me. We disappear and dissolve, we push, erupt, burn and slash – we become thunder, snow, a moon, a rainbow. Magma breaks from inside and we let it come out, let it create unknown dark ocean where in its viscous depths our fears and desires dwell. We, savages, dance and laugh. These pictures, like perpetual water flows, know no beginning and no end, they aim to inundate you. Instead of telling our story they draw you in so that you might see your own”.

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Alexander Gronsky & Ksenia Babushkina

“Schema”

Talka, 2016. Limited edition of 700 copies

15,4 x 22 cm, 144 pages, lenticular softcover

“The authors Alexander Gronsky and Ksenia Babushkina present their book as an exciting play on the perception of space and time. Its nature is exceptionally photographic and feeds on the history of photography and peculiarities of contemporary digital picture-taking. The book consists of diptychs and triptychs shot between 2005 and 2015 in different countries across the world, including Russia, Japan and Azerbaijan”.

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Vera Barkalova

“Pilgrim”

Self-published, 2014. Edition of 50 copies. 21 x 29,7 cm, 80 pages, numerous color images, softcover.

“The pilgrimage of the photographer has three stations. In the first part we meet young men and women from Moscow, misfits with tattoos, jewelry, oblique physiognomy or outrageous outfits. Very strong portraits, that reveal how close the photographer is with the models. Then the scenery changes. The environment is less urban, the characters that occur now are completely different. Two muscular, short-haired men in T-shirts, two young women with impure skin, scuffling guys in sweatpants. Is this at home in the province? The third part then leads away from both, the photographer takes a trip and encounters strange architecture, landscapes, installations and masked figures. Vera Barkalova is still searching for a place, but presents already a visually tremendously exciting debut here. I am eager to see where the road will take her” (Hannes Wanderer).

link: http://www.25books.com/25_books_all_detail.php?book=3953&lang=en&cat=1

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Julia Borissova

“Dimitry”

Self-published, 2016

First Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies 14,5 x 19 cm, die cut hardcover, handmade binding, 88 pages

“An incident that happened in the end of XVI century Russia became a starting point for this work. Tsarevich Dimitry, the last son of Ivan the Terrible died under mysterious circumstances from a knife wound to his throat, people speculated on the possible various causes for his death. I was intrigued by how the image of the past can reform in our minds today. Is it possible to imagine the true picture of the world while knowing that so much information is distributed to manipulate people’s minds for political purposes? Despite conscious efforts to perceive information objectively, brain generates myths that distort your logical thinking, making you conform to the ideas that are convenient for you”.

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Photobooks 2016.

This time of the year again!

(1). TIME Selects the Best Photobooks of 2016

(2). Best Books 2016: Best Cheap Book by  Colin Pantall

(3). Photobookstore: Photobooks of 2016

(4).  The 17 Best Socially Concerned Photobooks of 2016 According to Humble Arts Foundation

(5).

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“The Patient's Face”

Publishing house “Meduchposobie”, Moscow, 1971. Edition of 5000 copies. 22 x 29 cm, 120 pages.

Rare atlas of the patients’ facial expressions, which are “often indicative of physical ailments and mental experiences”. Texts by V. V. Kupriyanov, L. M. Suharebsky and G. D. Novinsky. Photographs were made by F. F. Novitskiy in Moscow hospitals.

On book (in Russian): http://syg.ma/@myiasis/litso-bolnogho-1971

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Evgeniy Petrachkov

“Malinikha”

Self-published, 2016

Edition of 100 numbered copies, 15 x 21 cm, 24 pages

An example of modestly made, but clever and well-edited zine with the potential for something big. The title refers to the place-names designating the old ghetto in Izhevsk, Udmurtia, Russia.

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Dmitry Lookianov

“Instant Tomorrow”

Peperoni Books, 2016. First trade edition. 22,4 x 26 cm, 104 pages, softcover, thread stitched with dust jacket

Brave new world, sterile paradise in the outskirts of Moscow.