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.

Portland, OR—Charles A. Hartman Fine Art presents Joseph Sterling: 30 Years of Photographs. This exhibition of more than 25 images reveals the artist’s range and embraces both the famed series, The Age Of Adolescence - a documentary masterwork exposing the life and milieu of the pre-Vietnam War era American teenager – and a variety of other imagery, including important photographs from the Pictus Twistus and Bird’s Eye View series. Joseph Sterling: 30 Years of Photographs will be on view at the Charles A Hartman gallery from January 18 to February 25, 134 NW 8th Ave Portland, OR.

Roberts & Tilton gallery in Los Angeles presents an exhibition presenting new and vintage photographs by Gusmano Cesaretti, curated by Aaron Rose. The main gallery will feature work from the early period of Cesaretti’s career (1970s) in which he immersed himself in the East Los Angeles culture. His photographs of this era celebrated a sub-culture that had rarely been captured before. The exhibition will include twenty-four vintage, unique prints that have recently been discovered and will be shown for the first time in Los Angeles. An Italian immigrant who moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s, Cesaretti quickly became fascinated by East Los Angeles. Inspired by the colors, people and graffiti that populated the East Side, he began to capture the vulnerability and uncensored quality of this area. Always honest when shooting his subjects, Cesaretti presents them as they are: violent, loving, confident, scared, full of life. It is this energy and conflict inherent in those who occupy the edges of society that drives his photographic investigations. On view until February 18, Roberts and Tilton, 5801 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 

Photograph by Christopher Lusher, West Virginia