Winners of the 2018 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards Announced
Paris—Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation are pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 edition of the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. The selection for Photography Catalogue of the Year is The Land in Between by Ursula Schulz-Dornburg. On Abortion by Laia Abril is the winner of PhotoBook of the Year. One Wall a Web by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa is the winner of $10,000 in the First PhotoBook category. A Jurors’ Special Mention is also given to Experimental Relationship Vol. 1 by Pixy Liao.
A final jury at Paris Photo selected this year’s winners. The jury included: Federica Chiocchetti, curator and founder of the Photocaptionist; Hervé Digne, president of Manifesto and the Odeon Circle; Kevin Moore, curator; Azu Nwagbogu, director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) and LagosPhoto Festival; and Batia Suter, artist.
Regarding the jury’s selection this year, Hervé Digne said, “The choices we made reflect the chaotic and changing world in which we are living—I think both the shortlist selection and the final award winners offer a window on the world at large and on the world of photography and photographic books today.”
Kevin Moore remarked on the First PhotoBook winner, “It’s a serious moment in history, and it felt urgent amongst the jury that we choose books that have gravity to them but also maybe a glimmer of hope, as in the selection of Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa’s One Wall a Web. This is a book that has complexity and embeds race in a larger narrative and a larger system—it demonstrates, if not a solution, at least a direction for further dialogue.”
Ursula Schulz-Dornburg’s The Land in Between was selected as the Photography Catalogue of the Year for providing a strong platform for interviews, portfolios, and essays about an artist less well-known outside of her native country. The minimalist, elegant design and form are well matched to the content, emphasizing what Batia Suter describes as “the artist’s sharp vision.”
Azu Nwagbogu spoke to the PhotoBook of the Year: “In choosing Laia Abril’s On Abortion, the jury felt it was important to recognize a well-crafted statement on a topical and timely issue. The book offers a strong commentary on women’s reproductive choices, and uniquely visualizes the topic using archival imagery, contemporary photographs, and text.”
Finally, Federica Chiocchetti explained the draw of Jurors’ Special Mention recipient Pixy Liao’s work: “In this current situation of post-#MeToo, and the ongoing debate around the binary opposition between the male and female gaze, Pixy Liao’s Experimental Relationship Vol. 1 is a very refreshing and blissful vision of intimacy, complicity, and collaboration between the sexes.”
This year’s Shortlist selection was made by a jury comprising Lucy Gallun (associate curator in the Department of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York), Kristen Lubben (executive director, Magnum Foundation, New York), Yasufumi Nakamori (incoming senior curator of international art [photography], Tate Modern, London), Lesley A. Martin (creative director, Aperture Foundation, and publisher of The PhotoBook Review), and Christoph Wiesner (artistic director, Paris Photo).
Since the announcement of the previous winners in November 2017, last year’s shortlisted titles have been exhibited in multiple venues internationally, including in Lithuania, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and Italy.
Following Paris Photo, the exhibition of the 2018 Shortlist will travel to Aperture Gallery, New York, from December 2018 to February 2019, and then to Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto, in May 2019.
