josef chladek

on photobooks and books

Koji Takiguchi - Sou, Little Big Man, 2014, New York

Softcover with transparent dust-jacket, signed, text by Koji Tokiguchi, Dan Abbe, design by Little Big Man Books, edition of 300 numbered copies.
„Koji Takiguchi’s poignant new photobook begins with two pictures that at first glance look identical. Takiguchi’s young wife leans over the hospital bed of her ailing mother, holding her hand as the invasive tubes crisscross her face. In the first photograph, her mother’s expression is flat and weary, the daughter’s a potent mixture of worry and anguish. In the second image, the despondent mood has brightened for just a moment, with a tiny fleeting smile spread across the mother’s face and a look of happy relief on that of the daughter. The two images succinctly capture the complex emotional roller coaster of having a terminally ill parent, and signal that Takiguchi has brought us deeply inside his family’s life, unflinchingly recording its ups and downs with tenderness and nuance.
...
As a complete experience, this book delivers the kind of emotional ferocity that we need more of in contemporary photography, sympathetically reminding us that this medium has the power to grab us not only by the head but by the heart.“ (Loring Knoblauch at collectordaily)

Pages: 116
Place: New York
Year: 2014
Publisher: Little Big Man
Size: 23 x 33 cm (approx.)