Aperture Foundation and Paris Photo are delighted to collaboratively present the fourth annual Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards for the first time this year hosted by Huis Marseille.
In the words of Chris Boot, director of Aperture Foundation, the overwhelming response to the call for entries this year gives testament to the “rude health” of the photobook publishing community. (Apparently, this is a Britishism used to indicate that something is “vigorous and lively.”)
With over one thousand entries from more than sixty countries— including the usual suspects from the U.S., UK, Japan, and Western and Northern Europe, but also Armenia, Australia, China, India, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates, among others—the field has become very competitive indeed.
The close study of such a diverse assemblage of publications is by turns sobering, fortifying, and exhilarating. As the recently appointed artistic director of Paris Photo, Christoph Wiesner, states, “We saw a wide range of approaches during the jurying of the shortlist—from the aesthetic to the political. Books are a critical means of disseminating
the work of an artist, and of proposing different roles that photography can take.”
Each of the thirty-five books (with one additional special jurors’ mention) offers its own unique story, told through every decision of its content, form, and design. Each one elucidates yet another facet of the ever-evolving ecosystem of the photobook today. They range from self-published, printed-on-demand books to those funded by Kickstarter campaigns or put out by established publishers. There are books on newsprint; unbound folios; multivolume sets, big and small; spiral-bound notebooks; and jacketed paperbacks. Classically designed volumes sit next to binder-clipped fax paper and hacked e-readers. At least two of the shortlisted books (and many others submitted) were created as final graduation projects, underscoring the increased attention now given to the photobook in university-level photography and design programs. There are, inevitably, some very good books that do not end up on the shortlist. Nonetheless, those that have been selected are truly among the best that photobook publishing has to offer.
Aperture and Paris Photo would like to extend our thanks to all the photographers, publishers, designers, and readers who make the PhotoBook Awards one of the highlights of the photobook year.
—Lesley A. Martin (Aperture Foundation)
Aperture, a not-for-profit foundation, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each other—in print, in person, and online.
Look A Book! – photobook event in Huis Marseille
On the occasion of this exhibition, Huis Marseille is organising the event Look, A Book! on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 January. The event will feature a photobook market and a symposium programme in which the value of a photobook prize will be studied by various photographers, designers, publishers and other photography professionals. The event will be in Dutch. The photobook market is accessible for all museum visitors. For more information (in Dutch), click here.
Paris Photo-Aperture PhotoBook Awards – Nominees
PHOTOGRAPHY CATALOGUE OF THE YEAR
Beastly/Tierisch
Duncan Forbes, Matthias Gabi, and Daniela Janser
Spector Books/Fotomuseum Winterthur
A Guide for the Protection of the Public in Peacetime
Timothy Prus, Ed Jones, and David Alan Mellor
Archive of Modern Conflict
Images of Conviction: The Construction of Visual Evidence
Diane Dufour and Xavier Barral
Le Bal/Éditions Xavier Barral
TR Ericsson: Crackle & Drag
TR Ericsson, Arnaud Gerspacher, and Barbara Tannenbaum
Yale University Press/Cleveland Museum of Art
William Eggleston: A Cor Americana
Thyago Noguiera
Instituto Moreira Salles
FIRST PHOTOBOOK OF THE YEAR
Annette Behrens
(in matters of) Karl
Fw:Books
Noa Ben-Shalom
Hush: Israel Palestine 2000–2014
Sternthal Books
Sophie Bramly
Walk This Way
Galerie 213
Matthew Connors
Fire In Cairo
SPBH Editions
Iñaki Domingo
Ser Sangre
RM Verlag/La Kursala/Here Press
J. W. Fisher and J. T. Leonard
Landmark
Daylight
Dominic Forde
Ramps, Pools, Ponds and Pipes
Self-published
Siegfried Hansen
Hold the Line
Verlag Kettler
Lucy Helton
Transmission
Silas Finch
Benoît Jeannet
A Geological Index of the Landscape
Self-published
Sjoerd Knibbeler
Paper Planes
Fw:Books
Madeleine Kotte and Cornelius de Bill Baboul
5 PTOHOGRAHPIES—40 × 28 CM
The Ptohograhpies
Daniel Mayrit
You Haven’t Seen Their Faces
Riot Books
Katarzyna Mazur
Anna Konda
dienacht Publishing
Gilles Raynaldy
Jean-Jaurès
Purpose Éditions
Paweł Szypulski
Greetings from Auschwitz
Edition Patrick Frey/Foundation for Visual Arts
Hiroshi Takizawa
Mass
Newfave
Maurice van Es
Now Will Not Be With Us Forever
RVB Books
Adrian Octavius Walker
My Lens, Our Ferguson
Self-published
Akihito Yoshida
Brick Yard
Self-published
PHOTOBOOK OF THE YEAR
Anthony Cairns
LDN EI
Self-published
Dana Lixenberg
Imperial Courts 1993–2015
Roma Publications
Thomas Mailaender
Illustrated People
Archive of Modern Conflict/RVB Books
Mike Mandel
Good 70s
J&L Books/D.A.P.
Tod Papageorge
Studio 54
Stanley/Barker
Christian Patterson
Bottom of the Lake
Walther König
Fazal Sheikh
Erasure
Steidl
Will Steacy
Deadline
b.frank books
Daisuke Yokota
Taratine
Session Press
Xu Yong
Negatives
New Century Press
JURORS’ SPECIAL MENTION
Kikuji Kawada
Chizu (The Map)
Akio Nagasawa