Essays by Vince Aletti and Christopher McCall
168 pages | 93 reproductions | 11.25 x 8.5 in. | Hardcover | 978-1-59711-009-9
Pier 24 Photography, 2024
Photo Book Photo List is unique in that it features not only great photobooks, but lists of the photobooks that have been formative to contemporary practicing photographers. The project is the culmination of Christopher McCall’s ongoing conversations with many photographers over the last fifteen years. Each provided a list of between eight and fourteen prized, cherished photobooks, sometimes annotated with notes or observations, and the artist Libby Black created a sculpture of one or more books on each list to illustrate it. A deliberately open-ended prompt allowed for surprises and purely personal reactions involving books that are perhaps more obscure, or a stretch definitionally. The artists were encouraged to ransack their libraries (and their memories) in search of the raw materials that have shaped their own ongoing attempts at photographic alchemy.