Kraszna-Krausz 2017 Book Awards Shortlist Announced

The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation (KKF) today revealed the shortlisted entries for its annual photo book awards.

Established in 1985, the KKF Book Awards are the UK’s leading prizes for books published in the fields of photography and the moving image and the two winners share a £10,000 prize.

The shortlisted works were chosen by an international panel of leading photography professionals after an open call for submissions, and will be on display at Photo London, Somerset House from 18 until 21 May 2017.

Shortlist revealed for The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation 2017 Book Awards in Photography and Moving Image

• The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Book Awards reveals the six shortlisted books in Photography and Moving Image
• The UK’s leading prize for books on photography and moving image, the awards recognise books which make an original and lasting contributions to the fields
• The Kraszna-Krausz Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Award announced for art publisher Robert Delpire
• The shortlist and longlist will be exhibited at Photo London, 18 – 21 May, Somerset House, London

The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation announces the shortlist for their Book Awards championing books in photography and moving image. The Awards recognise practitioners that have made an original and lasting educational, professional, historical and cultural contributions to the fields of photography and moving image books.

This year’s shortlisted works reflect a range of approaches and subject matters encompassing the uses of photography in postwar Japan, the splintered narratives of war and displacement between Europe, Israel/Palestine, and the United States and African American actors in Hollywood in the 1930s . With prize money of £10,000 divided between the Best Photography Book Award and the Best Moving Image Book published each year, the Awards celebrate excellence in photography and moving image publishing and seek to broaden perceptions on the importance of books in both fields.

The shortlisted works were chosen by an international panel of leading photography professionals after an open call for submissions, and will be on display at Photo London, Somerset House from 18 until 21 May 2017. The judging panel includes Martin Barnes (Senior Curator, Photographs, V&A); Vanessa Winship (Photographer); Ben Burbridge (Senior Lecturer, University of Sussex); Larsuhka Ivan-Zadeh (Film Editor, Metro newspaper) and Professor Peter Stanfield (Lecturer in Film, University of Kent and co-di rector of the Centre For the Interdisciplinary Study of Film and the Moving Image.)

The following books have been nominated for the shortlist:

Photography Books

Adam Golfer: A House Without a Roof by Adam Golfer (Booklyn)

A House Without a Roof concerns the strands of history connecting the Jewish Diaspora out of Europe and forced mass migrations from Palestine following WWII with the creation of the State of Israel. The book loosely traces the triangular relationship between Golfer’s grandfather – a survivor of Dachau, his father – who lived on a kibbutz in the early 1970s, and the artist – caught between the membrane of histories that turned the oppressed into oppressors and residents into refugees. A House Without a Roof negotiates the splintered narratives of war and displacement between Europe, Israel/Palestine, and the United States.

Provoke: Between Protest and Performance by Diane Dafour, Matthew Witkovsky, eds. (Steidl) The short-lived Japanese magazine Provoke is recognized as a major achievement in world photography of the postwar era, uniting the country’s most contentious examples of protest photography, vanguard fine art, and critical theory of the late 1960s and early 70s in only three issues overall. Provoke is accordingly treated here as a model synthesis of the complexities and overlapping uses of photography in postwar Japan. The writing and images by Provoke ’s members – critic Koji Taki, poet Takahiko Okada, photographers Takuma Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Daido Moriyama – were suffused with the tactics developed in some Japanese protest books which made use of innovative graphic design and provocatively “poor” materials. Recording live actions, photography in these years was also an expressive form suited to emphasize and critique the mythologies of modern life with a wide spectrum of performing artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Koji Enokura and Jiro Takamatsu. This catalogue accompanies the first exhibition ever to be held about the magazine and its creators and focuses on its historical context.

Looking for Alice by David Chandler Sian Davey (Trolley)

Looking for Alice is an award-winning project by British photographer Sian Davey, which tells the story of her daughter Alice and their family. Alice was born with Down’s Syndrome, but is no different to any other little girl or indeed human being. She feels what we all feel. Their family is also like many other families, and Davey’s portraits of Alice and their daily life are both intimate and familiar. Davey says “My family is a microcosm for the dynamics occurring in many other families. Previously as a psychotherapist I have listened to many stories and it is interesting that what has been revealed to me, after fifteen years of practice, is not how different we are to one another, but rather how alike we are as people. It is what we share that is significant. The stories vary but we all experience similar emotions.”

Moving Image Books

Anatomy of Sound: Norman Corwin and Media Authorship by Jacob Smith and Neil Verman, eds. (University of California Press)

This collection examines the work of Norman Corwin as a critical lens to view the history of multimedia authorship and sound production. Corwin is most famous for his radio dramas, which reached millions of listeners around the world and contributed to radio’s success as a mass media form in the 1930s and 1940s. Exploring the range of Corwin’s work and its influence on media today, these essays underscore the political and social impact of Corwin’s oeuvre and cement his reputation as a key writer in the history of many sound media.

Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood by Miriam Petty (University of California Press)

Stealing the Show is a study of African American actors in Hollywood during the 1930s, focusing on five performers whose Hollywood film careers flourished during this period to reveal the “problematic stardom” and the enduring, interdependent patterns of performance and spectatorship for performers and audiences of color. She maps how these actors employed various strategies of cinematic and extracinematic performance to negotiate their complex positions in Hollywood. Drawing on a variety of source materials, Petty explores these stars’ reception among Black audiences and theorizes African American viewership in the early twentieth century.

Howard Hawkes: New Perspectives by Ian Brookes (BFI/Palgrave)

In New Perspectives, leading international scholars consider the films and legacy of Howard Hawks. Diverse contributions consider Hawks’ work in relation to issues of gender, genre and relationships between the sexes, discuss key films including Rio Bravo, The Big Sleep and Red River, and address Hawks’ visual style and the importance of musicality in his film-making.

The Kraszna-Krausz Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Award is awarded every third year to an individual whose career exemplifies the very best in book publishing: inspired creativity, innovative design, and long-standing commitments to the artists whose work they bring to life through print. This year the award is being presented to Robert Delpire , art publisher, editor, curator, film producer and graphic designer who has made an outstanding contribution to the field and produced books now considered landmarks of the medium. For over sixty years Delpire has produced, edited and curated iconic books and monographs of key photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai and Robert Frank, bringing his anthropological interests onto their pages.

Sir Brian Pomeroy, Chairman of The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation said: “Robert Delpire receives the 2017 Kraszna-Krausz Outstanding Contribution to Publishing award in recognition of his landmark career in photobooks. Throughout his life, Delpire’s projects have exemplified the highest standards of intellectual rigour and creative production. His work has inspired multiple generations of publishers and image makers and he is among the most influential photobook makers of the 20th and 21st centuries.”

The Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Award was created in 2011 and presented that year to Gerhard Steidl of Steidl. It was awarded in 2012 to Dewi Lewis of Dewi Lewis Publishing; in 2013 to Thomas Neurath of Thames and Hudson; in 2014 to Philippa Brewster of I.B. Tauris; and in 2015 to Reuters news agency editor-at-large, Sir Harold Evans.