Originally published in 1983, Les Amies de Place Blanche, rereleased by Dewi Lewis Publishing, focuses on the transsexual community living around the Place Blanche district of Paris in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The book established Christer Strömholm’s reputation as one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century. ‘This is a book about insecurity. A portrayal of those living a different life in that big city of Paris, of people who endured the roughness of the streets. This is a book about humiliation, about the smell of whores and night life in cafés. This is a book about the quest for self-identity, about the right to live, about the right to own and control one’s own body. This is also a book about friendship, an account of the life we lived in the place Blanche and place Pigalle neighbourhood. Its market, its boulevard and the small hotels we resided in. These are pictures from another time. A time when de Gaulle was president and France was at war against Algeria. These are pictures of people whose lives I shared and whom I think I understood. These are pictures of women – biologically born as men – that we call ‘transsexuals’. As for me, I call them ‘my friends of place Blanche’. This friendship started here, in the early 60s and it has been going on for 22 years.’ – Christer Strömholm, 1983. The book includes the original essays by Strömholm and publisher Johan Ehrenberg as well as newly commissioned texts by Jackie and Nana, two of the women who feature in many photographs in the book. The introduction is by Hélène Hazera, a leading French journalist, actress, director, and television producer who is also a transsexual. Available now in the UK and in the US next month.

Photography by Lena Vazhenina

Intimate Stranger, an exhibition on view now Kunstmuseum Basel, presenting the body of work of photographer Karlheinz Weinberger, is rarely on public display. Shown together with magazines and a selection of vintage fashion, these pictures document a bygone youth culture in Zurich. The movement emerged after World War II, driven by the desire to undermine prevailing notions of “Swiss propriety.” For most of his life, Weinberger worked in a warehouse at Siemens-Albis, Zurich. A self-taught photographer, he dedicated his free time to this art, portraying his lovers and other people he met in the street. Starting in the late 1940s, he frequently published his pictures in Der Kreis, a homosexual magazine that garnered international attention, signing his work with the pseudonym “Jim.” In 1958, he launched a major project, for which he would follow a gang of “Halbstarke” (half strong) for an extended period of time. Intimate Stranger is on view until April 15, 2012 at the Kunstmuseum, Basel – Sankt Alban-Graben 16 4051 Basle, Switzerland.

The photography of Reka Koti is doused in the ether of a dream-like, otherworldly realm.  Based in Budapest, Hugary, Reka Koti is strictly an analog girl – using Russian lomography cameras to capture her stirringly beautiful images. Light dances and whips back and catches itself again as if being chased by a butterfly net – where the subjects are still and reflective, the background’s forceful kinetecism could explode around them. Pas Un Autre got a hold of Reka to ask her a few questions about her photography and what we learned is that she is an artist with many stories to tell with her magical imagery. Read interview after the jump. [CONTINUE...]

Photograph by The Death of Youth

Photography by Helmut Newton

Paris, Portrait of a City is Taschen publishers new, vivid history of the capital of love and photography. A city built on two millennia of history, Paris is entering the third century of its love story with photography. It was on the banks of the Seine that Niépce and Daguerre officially gave birth to this new art that has flourished ever since, developing a distinctive language and becoming a vital tool of knowledge. Paris: Portrait of a City leads us through what Goethe described as a “universal city where every step upon a bridge or a square recalls a great past, where a fragment of history is unrolled at the corner of every street”. The history of Paris is recounted in photographs ranging from Daguerre’s early incunabula to the most recent images – an almost complete record of over a century and a half of transformations and a vast panorama spanning more than 600 pages and 500 photographs. This book brings together the past and the present, the monumental and the everyday, objects and people. Images captured by the most illustrious photographers – Daguerre, Marville, Atget, Lartigue, Brassaï, Kertész, Ronis, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson and many more – but also by many unknown photographers, attempt to bottle just a little of that “Parisian air”, something of that particular poetry given out by the stones and inhabitants of a constantly changing city that has inspired untold numbers of writers and artists over the ages. Available March 1st here. 

Photograph by Christopher Lusher, West Virginia

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A new book is available of Billy Monk’s nightclub photography. Billy Monk worked as a bouncer in the notorious Catacombs club in the dock area of Cape Town, South Africa, during the 1960s. He originally began taking pictures in the club with the intention of selling the photographs to the customers – the people he was photographing. His aim was not to make a social statement, but his money-making scheme quickly turned into something else as he increasingly captured the raw energy of the club, its decadence and tragedy, its humanity and joy. As someone who shared the experiences of those club-goers he was trusted by them and was able to convey their world and their experience with great energy and honesty. As photographer David Goldblatt has written in the forward: “These are photographs by an insider of insiders for insiders. If inhibitions were lowered by the seemingly vast quantities of brandy and Coke that were imbibed, trust, nevertheless, is powerfully evident. Not simply in the raucous tweaking of bared breasts, or the more guarded but evident ‘togetherness’ of two bearded men, as well as the open flouting of peculiarly South African sanctions such as prohibitions on interracial sex. It is also present in the quiet composure of many of the portraits. People seemed to welcome and even bask in Monk’s attentions.” Monk stopped photographing at the club in 1969. Ten years later his contact sheets and negatives were discovered and in 1982 the work was exhibited at the Market Gallery in Johannesburg. Monk could not make the opening and two weeks later, en route to seeing the show, he became involved in an argument. A fight broke out, Monk was fatally shot in the chest and never saw his work exhibited. The book, Billy Monk: Nightclub Photographs, is now available.