Photobook Phenomenon

The exhibition is a dialogue of perspectives among its international curators, who present six thematic elements that bring us closer to what is a photobook from very different perspectives. Moritz Neumüller is the executive curator. It also involves artists, oragnisations, publishers, specialists and booksellers from an international and local scope.

In "Photobook Phenomenon", among many other contents, can be seen from the photobooks of Ródchenko, William Klein and Robert Frank to the Japanese photobooks, pioneers of this phenomenon. The photographer Martin Parr has chosen a selection that make up the theme of the exhibition, which also includes a section devoted to photobooks of denunciation and propaganda that bring together the most radical designes and intertwines books and photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Gabriel Cualladó and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The exhibition that was seen in Barcelona in 2017 has been adapted for the presentation in Donostia, where it includes a section with the books of Gabriela Cendoya's collection, which she deposited in the museum in 2017 so that they were accessible to the public.

A photobook is a work in itself. A book in which the photographs build the story and respond to a concept of author. A choral work in which intervene graphic design, typography, the sequence of images, the model, and the text, that is, a set of qualities of concept and the materiality of the object. In recent years, photobooks have experienced a period of great expansion and have come to occupy a central position in contemporary photography. Currently, more photobooks are produced than ever, they are bought and sold, exchanged and collected, and we can see that, in the midst of the digital age, there is a return to the printed object. Many authors have found in this format a good tool to show their photographs, as well as a perfect space for experimentation and creativity.

«Photobook Phenomenon» offers a kaleidoscopic look and a dialogue of perspectives on the photobook. The curators selected for the exhibition are Martin Parr, Gerry Badger, Markus Schaden, Frederic Lezmi, Horacio Fernandez, Irene de Mendoza and Moritz Neumüller, who has acted as executive curator.

The exhibition also explores the challenge of exposing a model that uses several interactive systems that allow to travel and "experience" the book and photography from very different approaches.