PHOTOBOOK OF THE YEAR

Book signings

Thomas Sauvin and Kensuke Koike
No More No Less
the(M) éditions, Skinnerboox, and Jiazazhi
Paris; Jesi, Italy; and Ningbo, China, 2018
 
In 2015, collector and archivist Thomas Sauvin purchased an anonymous album of portraits. He invited artist Kensuke Koike to alter the images according to his practice, in which he cuts and reassembles found images in such a manner that nothing is removed and nothing is added. Koike’s twenty-six new photographs serve as a springboard for the project No More No Less. Sauvin and Koike invited three publishers to simultaneously each produce a book. The three books exist individually and autonomously; together, the three volumes represent the culmination of this collaborative work. Skinnerboox’s Italian edition consists of various cuts and folds, creating an accordion-style book. The French publisher the(M) éditions created a book that opens from the spine on both sides; each photograph sits within an embossed card frame. (The cut marks on the back of each photograph are highlighted with a clear varnish.) Chinese publisher Jiazazhi inserted images into separate envelopes that make up the pages of the book; each envelope is stamped with a geometric graphic drawn from the cut marks of the photograph within. “This project is an incredible collaboration that challenges the very idea of how books could be made and interpreted depending on cultures,” states Wiesner.