Book Talks: Learn to Read Art

Gregoire Grange, Paris Photo 2024

About

Organised by Lesley A. Martin, Executive Director of Printed Matter, this year’s Paris Photo Book Talks focuses on artists’ books and publishers, drawing inspiration from conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner’s work Learn to Read Art. This framework highlights the practice of critical visual reading

Hosted by Printed Matter, the Book Talks program offers a platform for artists and publishers to discuss the relationship between artists’ books and photography as a key part of contemporary practice. Conversations will address questions of sequence, structure, and the dialogue between image and text.

Each day, a one-hour discussion will bring together three to four artists, scholars, curators, publishers and other professionals to explore themes related to the photobook as an artist’s book, alongside other related topics. In addition, three daily 30-minute sessions will focus on a newly released publication. These discussions will feature artists, collectors, designers, writers and others involved in the book-making process.

The first edition of this program will take place at Paris Photo, in the Galerie Courbe of the Grand Palais (Level 1), from 13 to 16 November, between 2 and 5 p.m.

Thursday Nov. 13

2 p.m.

L is for Look: Exploring Children’s Photobooks
Lesley A. Martin – Olivia Arthur, Frédérique Destribats, Anne Lacoste
Featuring L is for Look: Children’s Photobooks (Spector/Institut pour la photographie/Photo Élysée) and
Lee and the Sea Things (Bel et Bien Éditions)

3 p.m.

Thyago Nogueira on Paiter Suruí, Gente de Verdade: um projeto do Coletivo Lakapoy (Instituto Moreira Salles)
In conversation with Susan Meiselas

3:30 p.m.

Rinko Kawauchi on M/E (delpire & co)
In conversation with Lesley A. Martin

4 p.m.

Renée Mussai on Black Chronicles (Thames & Hudson and Autograph)
In conversation with Keisha Scarville

4:30 p.m.

Erik Kessels on MAN and An Incomplete Encyclopedia of Touch (RVB)
In conversation with Karel de Mulder

Friday Nov. 14

2 p.m.

Sasha Kurmaz on Red Horse (Images Vevey)
In conversation with Stefano Stoll

2:30 p.m.

Eva Szombat on Echo in Delirium (Symposion and Everybody Needs Art)
In conversation with Maia Asshaq

4 p.m.

Joan Fontcuberta on Against Barthes: The Eye and the Index (MACK/Actes Sud)
In conversation with Sonia Berger 

Saturday 15 Nov.

2 p.m.

Archive in Print
Hoda Afshar, The Fold (Loose Joints)
Salomé Erni, Interesting Things (self-published)
In conversation with Taous Dahmani

3:30 p.m.

Eric Tabuchi on Kirsten & Yasse (Poursuite)
In conversation with Clément Chéroux

4 p.m.

Mari Katayama on Synthesis (MACK/SPBH Editions)
In conversation with Pauline Vermare 

4:30 p.m.

Bharat Sikka on Ripples in the Road and Elephant in the Room (FW: Books)
In conversation with Brendan Embser

Sunday 16 Nov.

3 p.m.

Ying Ang on Fruiting Bodies (Perimeter)
In conversation with Dan Rule

3:30 p.m.

Coreen Simpson on Coreen Simpson: A Monograph (Aperture)
In conversation with Michael Famighetti

4 p.m.

Wolfgang Tillmans: Photography on the Printed Page
Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us (Centre Pompidou/Spector)
In conversation with Lesley A. Martin