The publishing house Phaidon releases Magnum Photobook: The Catalogue Raisonné, the first complete illustrated bibliography of 1,000 iconic photobooks created by members of the renowned photo agency. This fascinating in-depth survey brings Magnum’s history alive through the genre of the photobook – an essential vehicle for photographers to share their work. Its pages include unpublished behind-the-scenes material, together with ephemera from the photographers’ archives about the making of their books. Produced by authors and historians Fred Ritchin and Carole Naggar, this book explores the evolution of the photobook, as well as the important role that Magnum has played in the history of documentary photography.
Could you tell us how this project was born?
Carole Naggar: The project was born as an idea between Magnum and Phaidon Press, as a follow-up to the other volumes on photobooks that Phaidon has published. Then we were brought into the project. We both have worked with Magnum photographers on numerous occasions and it was a good fit.
Fred Ritchin: I had written the history of Magnum Photos, “What is Magnum?,” for the fortieth anniversary of the agency. It was published in 1989 by W. W. Norton in a book called In Our Time: The World as Seen by Magnum Photographers.” So I was seen as someone who would be able to write an Introduction charting the trajectory of photobook-making at Magnum for their seventieth anniversary. Carole did the large majority of the texts on the individual books, and I contributed a certain number on the works that I knew best.
An archive of 1000 photobooks is quite a huge amount. Wasn’t the process long and fastidious?
C.N.: The 1,000 books bibliography was done not by us but by Victoria Clarke, Acquisitions Editor at Phaidon. She did a fantastic and monumental job on this, apart from working with us on text editing.
F.R.: Carole and I focused on the 100+ books which were featured.
Did you assign yourself (each of you) a specific role on this project?
C.N.: After a discussion with Phaidon we decided that Fred would do the preface and write about 15 or 20 books, choosing the books where he had worked with the photographers, and I did the other 85 texts on 85 books that also included photographers I had worked with ,on such as Martine Franck, George Rodger, Werner Bischof, David Seymour Chim, and many others. The whole project took us three intense months, then another round of two months for editing and corrections, with feedback from the photographers.
F.R.: Yes, as stated above, I wrote the Introduction giving the overall trajectory of photobook-making since Robert Capa’s Death in the Making in 1938, and Carole did the great majority of the individual texts on specific books and I contributed texts on the books that I knew the best.
Does this book contain absolutely all photobooks ever published by Magnum photographers?
F.R.: As far as I know.
C.N.: Amazingly, not one Magnum photographer has complained about the book. The champion in book numbers is Martin Parr with more than 90, Raymond Depardon comes second with more than 60.
You highlighted about 100 of them. In the book, each of them is illustrated by pictures, practical information and a resume. How did you decide to make that selection?
F.R.: It was primarily a conversation between Magnum and Phaidon, particularly Martin Parr, Magnum’s President, and Victoria Clarke at Phaidon. Carole and I suggested certain changes along the way, most of which were made latter on.
C.N.: Actually, Fred and I then questioned some of the choices and the choices were readjusted according to what we thought.
Would there be only one Magnum photobook to remember?
F.R.: There is an enormous variety of books – diaries, group projects, books on specific subjects, thematic books, and so on. So just as there is no one generic Magnum photographer there is no one generic Magnum book.
C.N.: If you mean which is a personal favorite, for me it is Sergio Larrain’s Valparaiso, both for the wonderfully modern and sensual images and for Pablo Neruda’s incredibly beautiful and poetic text. The two of them walked around Valparaiso together, exploring the city.
Going through such an archive and one history of photography must have been pleasant. Did you discover any particular things, anecdotes, that surprised you?
F.R.: I discovered most particularly that books could often be a refuge from the mass media, a way of saying something more intimate, more idiosyncratic, without the concerns of pleasing outside editors. The photobook could be a place of autonomy for the photographer.
C.N.: The whole project has been thrilling, one of the best in my working life. One great moment was when the cases of books arrived. We had told the editor that we could not work from pdfs and needed to handle the books physically and the boxes showed up at our door. For us touching and looking at books, the paper quality, the printing, the cloth, the sequencing, etc. was an essential part of writing about them. An archival is first and foremost a physical thing, even though there are many great archives on the web (David Chim Seymour is one of them).
Personally, I discovered that I was especially touched by books that were intimate, diary-like, where the photographer expressed things that he could not express in his normal working life, because with the book the photographer is completely in charge; or books that extend the habitual form of the photobook, such as Olivia Arthur’s Stranger, done with translucent papers where text and photos mingle. She has her own publishing house, Fishbar. I also especially liked Jacob Auer Sobol’s Sabine where he becomes a full-fledged participant rather than observer. For sheer punch, humor and a touch of cruelty I would cite Chris Anderson’s Stump and Bruce Gilden’s Go. For sheer poetry, Hiroshi Hamaya’s Calendar Days of Asaya Hamaya, a portfolio rather than a book, where he pays homage to his wife, a tea ceremony master, after she died. The portfolio was given to people who attended her funeral. I rediscovered some forgotten or half-forgotten photographers such as Burk Uzzle or Abigail Heyman for instance. And was struck again by the irony and skill of Philip Jones Griffiths’s Vietnam Inc.
Is there a way to, today, individually buy all the photobooks that are present in this volume?
F.R.: Probably, if one was incredibly driven and well-funded.
C.N.: Yes, if you are very wealthy! Many of the books are out of print. And unfortunately, many people are now buying several copies of photobooks and getting them signed so they can resell them at a profit. Photobooks have become part of the art market. So getting all these books would be a challenge.
As written in the introduction of this volume, today photobooks are essential to photographer’s recognition. What could you say about Magnum’s publishing house actual politics?
F.R.: The strength of Magnum has always been its ability to assert the independence of its individual photographers, not expecting them to resemble each other. What the photobooks do is allow and encourage this individuality. And when the books succeed in depicting the outside world along with the inside world of the photographer in some kind of balance and tension, it is an extraordinary result.
Interview by Jonas Cuénin
Magnum Photobook : The Catalogue Raisonné
By Carole Naggar and Fred Ritchin
Published by Phaidon
$79.95
http://fr.phaidon.com/store/photography/magnum-photobook-the-catalogue-raisonne-9780714872117/
