{"id":6928,"date":"2017-11-03T13:51:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T18:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/november-december-2017-photo-books\/"},"modified":"2023-01-23T14:48:11","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T19:48:11","slug":"november-december-2017-photo-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/photo-books\/november-december-2017-photo-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Annie Leibovitz, Duane Michals, William Wegman, Stephen Shore, Henry Gruyaert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-34943 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/annie-leibovitz-2d.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"466\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 350px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 350\/466;\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-34943 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/annie-leibovitz-2d.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"466\"><\/noscript>It\u2019s the season for big, ambitious books \u2013 and a few more modest titles that should not be missed. I\u2019ll start with one of the heftiest, <span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><a style=\"color: #00ccff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.phaidon.com\/store\/photography\/annie-leibovitz-portraits-2005-2016-9780714875132\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Annie Leibovitz\u2019s <b>Portraits<i> <\/i>2005-2016<\/b> (Phaidon)<\/a><\/span>, a collection of more than 150 pictures of famous people (Barack Obama, Caitlin Jenner, Joan Didion, LeBron James, etc.) that never feels like a greatest-hits package. Leibovitz is known for her elaborately staged set pieces, and there are plenty of them here, including the knockout, and oddly touching, cover images (front and back) of James Franco and Marina Abramovic as Adam and Eve. Spontaneity is still rare in her work, but the control freak has learned to let it be, especially when her subjects are other artists and photographers. Her pictures of Sally Mann, David Hockney, Kara Walker, Jasper Johns, and Susan Rothenberg are among the book\u2019s most empathetic and unexpected images. And then there\u2019s a naked Jeff Koons in his gym. <span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><a style=\"color: #00ccff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thamesandhudsonusa.com\/books\/duane-michals-portraits-hardcover\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Duane Michals\u2019s<b> Portraits<\/b> (Thames &amp; Hudson)<\/a><\/span> includes some of the same celebrities and artists Leibovitz shot, but the mood is more informal, almost intimate, and the photographer\u2019s charm and impish wit always enliven the results. Michals has had a long career of editorial and personal work, so the book is exceptionally wide ranging, from a 1962 shot of Veronica Lake laughing in a diner booth to a 1991 picture captioned \u201cJohn Cheever was a flirt\u201d (an understatement considering the author\u2019s gaze and condition), with Streisand, Truffaut, and Madonna in between \u2013 and plenty after. With these subjects in the lens, it\u2019s not all whimsy and delight; a picture titled \u201cMother After Father Died\u201d proves Michals knows how to frame a tender, unguarded moment. But the photographer clearly enjoys his encounters with fame and talent (probably because he\u2019s rarely outmatched), and even the fraught work glows.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/william-wegman-being-human-flat-cover.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34944 alignleft lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/william-wegman-being-human-flat-cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"490\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 350px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 350\/490;\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34944 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/william-wegman-being-human-flat-cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"490\"><\/noscript><\/a>&nbsp;William Wegman says he \u201cmade a conscious effort to avoid\u201d anthropomorphizing the dogs in his photographs, but when a new collection of his Weimaraner work is titled <span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><a style=\"color: #00ccff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.chroniclebooks.com\/titles\/william-wegman-being-human.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>Being Human<\/b> (Chronicle)<\/a><\/span>, the issue is hard to avoid. William A. Ewing\u2019s edit of the series is the most extensive and engaging to date, with a slew of newly published Polaroids of the malleable, effortlessly chic animals, in and out of people clothes. But as a section titled \u201cNudes\u201d makes clear, human outfits don\u2019t make Man Ray, Fay Ray, and the gang any more relatable (or stylish) than they already are. Wegman\u2019s dogs are us: patient, put-upon, and waiting for a treat.<\/p>\n<p>In anticipation of Stephen Shore\u2019s MoMA retrospective (opening November 19), Aperture invited Ed Ruscha, Wes Anderson, Paul Graham, Taryn Simon, Thomas Struth, and ten others to choose up to ten unpublished pictures from Shore\u2019s <i>Uncommon Places<\/i> archive. The result, <span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><a style=\"color: #00ccff;\" href=\"https:\/\/aperture.org\/shop\/stephen-shore-selected-works-1973-1981\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>Selected Works 1973-1981<\/b><\/a><\/span>, is fascinating, if not revelatory. Shore\u2019s eye for the profoundly ordinary is hard to beat, but many of these photographs didn\u2019t make the first cut for a reason. Still, with Shore himself taking another stab at it, and particularly canny choices by Guido Guidi and An-My L\u00ea, among others, this is far more than a footnote to a contemporary classic.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34945\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34945\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34945 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/shore-spread-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 600px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 600\/337;\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34945\" src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/shore-spread-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><\/noscript><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34945\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spread from <i>Stephen Shore: Selected Works 1973-1981 <\/i>(Aperture)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Though newly published, <span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><a style=\"color: #00ccff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thamesandhudsonusa.com\/books\/harry-gruyaert-east-west-hardcover\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Henry Gruyaert\u2019s <b>East\/West<i> <\/i><\/b>(Thames &amp; Hudson)<\/a><\/span> has the look of a rediscovered classic. The Magnum photographer\u2019s super-saturated Kodachrome landscapes from Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 1981 and Moscow in 1989 are not just great social documents \u2013 they\u2019re among that period\u2019s best color photographs. Gruyaert\u2019s L.A. and Vegas work is terrific; he was new to both cities, so his take is fresh, immediate, and knife sharp. The Moscow series is just as finely observed, but the city looks stifled and out-of-date. Although these were taken nearly a decade after the Vegas pictures, there\u2019s no future here; Russia is still stuck in the dusty past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the season for big, ambitious books \u2013 and a few more modest titles that should not be missed. I\u2019ll start with one of the heftiest, Annie Leibovitz\u2019s Portraits 2005-2016 (Phaidon), a collection of more than 150 pictures of famous people (Barack Obama, Caitlin Jenner, Joan Didion, LeBron James, etc.) that never feels like a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"7261,6926,6760,6560,7374,6740,11421,7291,6521,6869,1611,7156","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"issues":[83],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6928"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=6928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}