Charlotte Dumas recently published a new book called Retrieved with portraits of 15 search dogs who were deployed to assist in the rescue efforts in New York and Washington during the September 11 attacks.

The book is published by The Ice Plant in Los Angeles in an edition of 2000 copies and printed by the excellent printer Calff & Meischke in Amsterdam. According to her site the first print run sold out in a week. If the first print run consisted of 2000 copies, which is a large edition for a photo book, selling those in one week is quite an achievement.

In her work Dumas explores the roles animals play in our lives. Portraits of dogs are a recurring theme in her work. Previously she portrayed police dogs, stray dogs in Palermo and New York City and working dogs in Italy. The way she portrayed these now aged dogs is very similar to the working dogs she portrayed in Italy. 

Currently part of the shop window of Athenaeum Booksellers in Amsterdam is dedicated to the new publication. As you can see they seem to have quite a few copies left.

Click here for a post about Al Lavoro! by Charlotte Dumas.

For those who are interested a selection of photo books acquired over the last months on a classic pizzeria tablecloth with coffee and chocolate cookies. On the table are titles by Stephen Gill, Rinko Kawauchi, Jason Fulford, Charlotte Dumas, WassinkLundgren and others.

Artist Charlotte Dumas recently published a new book titled Al Lavoro! It is the third title in the acclaimed series published by Fantombooks. The project was commissioned by Rapallo Fotografia Contemporanea 2010/2011. For Al Lavoro! Dumas portrayed working dogs in the region of Liguria Italy. Included are a life guard dog, a truffle dog, a hunting dog, a former laboratory dog, a retired racing dog and two rescue dogs.

Dogs are a recurring topic in the work of Dumas. This is her fourth series about dogs if you include the portraits of police dogs she made early in her career. In 2008 she photographed stray dogs in the streets of Palermo and in 2009 stray dogs at the shelters of New York City. The series about the stray dogs of Palermo was self published as Heart Shaped Hole in 2008.

What makes this book different from her other books is that she not only included the seven finished pieces, but also 24 Polaroids that served as studies. For two hunting dogs, who remain unnamed in the book, she only included a couple of Polaroid pictures.

In these portraits the influence of classical painting seems less apparent than in the earlier portraits of horses or the dogs in Heart Shaped Hole. This might be because in these pictures the setting appears more contemporary compared to the horse stables or the streets of Palermo. The dogs in these pictures pose at work: in the car boot, the back of a van or a fire brigade helicopter. The retired dogs posed at home on the couch as you might expect.

Al Lavoro! by Charlotte Dumas was curated by Francesco Zanot and designed by Fabrizio Radaelli. It is published by Fantombooks in an edition of 350 copies.

Fantom Editions published their third photobook Al Lavoro! by Charlotte Dumas. The publication accompanies the exhibition Al Lavoro! at the Rapallo Contemporary Photography Festival. The exhibition and book presents new work by Dumas commissioned by the festival focusing on portraits of working dogs of the area.

Some pictures of the series Al Lavoro! will also be on view at the booth of Paul Andriesse at Art Rotterdam (February 10-13) and in june they will be exhibited at the Schunck Glaspaleis, a former department store located in Heerlen, the Netherlands.

Charlotte Dumas ‘Pluto’ Rapallo, 2010. Courtesy Paul Andriesse.

For those who are interested, here is my personal top 10 of photobooks of 2010:

1. The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler / Map of Babylon by the master photographer John Gossage. Of course there is also the 2010 reprint of The Pond, but that was originally published in 1985.
2. Broken Manual by Alec Soth. A high-class photography book disguised as a manuscript. Soth’s previous books are great photobooks, but this is a work of art. It contains beautifully reproduced photographs ranging from small black and white pictures to full color fold-out pages alternating between matte and glossy finishes. The Walker Art Center monograph From Here to There is also highly recommended.
3. The Sound of Two Songs by Mark Power. This year I first bought a copy of 26 Different Endings (2007) because I liked the idea behind it. The Sound of Two Songs is a more conventional photobook, but it contains very good pictures made with a large-format camera.
4. La Carte d’après Nature by Thomas Demand, a.o. A beautiful catalog for an exhibition curated by Thomas Demand. Aperture’s monograph It’s Beautiful Here, Isn’t It… about Luigi Ghirri is a nice book, but the way the work of Ghirri is presented in this book among the work of others is something different. Even if you just want to buy a book with photography by Ghirri, I’d recommend this book above the Aperture monograph. It also contains a second book with a facsimile of a Luigi Ghirri manuscript for a small photobook.
5. Conditions by Andrés Marroquín Winkelmann. I am surprised it is not listed in other top 10’s that are published so far. This is a beautifully made book object with great photography. 
6. A Book of Birds by Stephen Gill. I love the work of Stephen Gill. Conceptually strong and great photography. I prefer A Book of Birds to the more experimental Outside In. I haven’t seen his other books of 2010 Coming up for Air and B Sides yet.
7. Sechsundzwanzig Wiener Tankstellen by Sebastian Hackenschmidt and Stefan Oláh. I am not a great fan of all these art books after Ed Ruscha’s classic, but for me this book is an exception. With a nice photo montage on the cover. The texts are in English and German.
8. How Terry Likes His Coffee by Florian van Roekel. Van Roekel received a lot of attention. I hope he is able to beat the second photobook syndrome. The book is sold-out, but I can imagine that there will be a reprint now that he is represented by Flatland Gallery.
9. Repose by Charlotte Dumas. The monograph Paradis was very disappointing. I think that is why she decided to self publish a new monograph shortly after the publication of Paradis. In this book she presents her work like a portfolio with beautifully printed large format pictures.
10. Studio by Harry Watts. A small publication with photographs documenting a photographer’s studio. Can’t help but like it. 

Click here for more posts about photobooks from this blog.

Artist Charlotte Dumas recently published a new book called Repose. It is published on the occasion of two exhibitions under the same title at FO.KU.S Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbrück and Julie Saul Gallery, New York. According to the publisher the images “are printed in outstanding quality and impressively large size”. The book contains mostly portraits from her previous series, but there is also a new tiger portrait from the series Parade. The 10 portraits in the book are 32 by 42 cm and inter-folded as loose sheets.