Black & White Photography - September 2015 UK

50

B+W

COMMENT

Photobooks are becoming increasingly popular with both amateur

and fine art photographers as a new and tactile way of displaying

their work. Shoair Mavlian, assistant curator of photography

at Tate Modern, discusses the genre.

A MODERN EYE

I

n May 2015 Tate Modern

hosted Offprint London,

an art publishing fair with

a focus on photobooks, the

first of its kind to be held in

London. Offprint was founded

in 2010 by Yannick Bouillis to

provide a space for independent

publishers to sell books alongside

Paris Photo, and over the past

five years has built a reputation

as the ‘off ’ venue running

alongside the fair, and the place

to find emerging, self-published,

artists, books in a vibrant,

enthusiastic environment. This

year with the first incarnation

of Photo London we decided to

invite Offprint to Tate Modern

to take over the Turbine Hall,

inviting 150 independent

publishers to transform the space

into a focus on photobooks for

the bank holiday weekend.

This was an exciting

opportunity for Tate as

photobooks have been

an important part of our

photography strategy in recent

years. They are central to the

way we think about the history

of photography and play a

fundamental role in how we

display work in our collection

displays and exhibitions.

A key example of this was the

show William Klein + Daido

Moriyama (Tate Modern

‘Th is was an exciting opportunity for Tate as

photobooks have been an important part of

our photography strategy in recent years.’

Untitled from the series Farewell Photography by Daido Moriyama.

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