Long Live the Glorious May 7 Directive
Books on Books No. 20
Published by Errata Editions
Text by Carol Yinghua Lu, Liu Ding, Shuxia Chen.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Long Live the Glorious May 7 Directive.'Long Live the Glorious May 7 Directive, published in 1971, is one of the key propaganda photobooks of Chairman Mao Zedong’s infamous Cultural Revolution. Illustrated with both color and black-and-white photographs taken by uncredited photographers, the book extolls the virtues of Mao’s communist ideology and purports to document the joyful, industrious effects of these ideas in action.
In Long Live the Glorious May 7 Directive, smiling workers and peasants read together from Mao’s “Little Red Book” of quotations, stalwart soldiers march in unending ranks and Chinese fighter pilots conquer the open skies. Of course, history remembers the realities of Mao’s Cultural Revolution quite differently.
Long Live the Glorious May 7 Directive is now extremely rare; Errata Editions’ Books on Books 20 presents this fascinating volume in its entirety with essays by Liu Ding, Carol Yinghua Lu and Shuxia Chen.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Long Live the Glorious May 7 Directive.'
WassinkLundgren - Ellen Thorbecke - Ed van der Elsken - Bertien van Manen - Reineke Otten in The Chinese Photobook Martin Parr Photography
Included in Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. I and Martin Parr and WassinkLunggren (eds.), The Chinese Photobook: From the 1900s to the Present. Often found incomplete and tattered, making this copy quite exceptional! In most copies, the photograph of Lin Bao, Mao's second in command, whose supposed 1971 coup attempt resulted in his death, are defaced. Shown at right, in this copy, it remains pristine.
"1966 was a momentous year in Chinese politics, for it marked the beginning of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution and the forming of the notorious Red Guards. Long Live the Bright Instruction celebrates five years of the Cultural Revolution, which Mao and his intimates initiated in an attempt to regain power after he had been demoted following the failure of his main policy initiative in the previous decade--the 'Great Leap Forward'. This is a true propaganda book in the sense that the bright colour photographs--most of them as carefully staged as an advertising shoot--totally mask the reality of the Cultural Revolution while extolling its virtues, exactly at the point when it was becoming discredited."--Parr & Badger
For a comprehensive look at Chinese propaganda imagery see Lars Hasvoll Bakke's brilliant survey on the subject at the excellent Crestock.com site
Mario García Joya: A la plaza con Fidel
Books on Books No. 21
Published by Errata Editions
Text by Leandro Villaro, Mario García Joya.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Mario García Joya: A la plaza con Fidel.'A la plaza con Fidel (To the plaza with Fidel) is doubly rare among Cuban photobooks: relatively few photobooks were produced in Cuba after the Revolution, and A la plaza con Fidel is also notable for its unique subject matter.
Photographed between 1959 and 1966 and published in 1970 by leading Cuban photographer and cinematographer “Mayito” (Mario García Joya, born 1938), the book focuses on Fidel Castro’s supporters and the festive atmosphere of the Revolution. Castro would mark important moments of the Revolution, when either revelry or reassurance was called for, with public addresses delivered in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución; “to the plaza with Fidel” became a refrain of the Revolution.
The 21st volume in Errata Editions’ Books on Books series, this edition of A la plaza con Fidel presents this little-known book in its entirety, with essays by photography curator Leandro Villaro.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Mario García Joya: A la plaza con Fidel.'
Horacio Fernandez (ed.), The Latin American Photobook and in Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. II.
Mario García Joya ('Mayito') is without a doubt one the most influential photographers and cinematographers Cuba has produced. "This publication ... is at once a propaganda book and a masterly exposition of how to construct a photo-essay and photobook from (on the face of it)somewhat unpromising material."--Parr & Badger
Books on Photobooks
By: Steven Heller | June 13, 2016
It took a trip to Rome to find what is under my nose. In a lovely little bookshop, ONEROOM Books, Art & Photo—the title refers to it being one room and a small closet—is a wealth of excellent international photobooks and books on and about photobooks. The store is run by the amiable Stefano Ruffa, and has things not readily available in New York City, including an entire series by Manhattan-based Errata Editions. The under-my-nose-and-have-not-seen-it-in-New York–purchase included a reprint of Alexey Brodovitch’s most famous photographic book, Ballet.
These are well-designed series of reprints but not facsimiles, which makes them interesting documents but not reproductions of the original. They even state, “The Errata Editions Books on Books series is an ongoing publishing project dedicated to making rare and out-of-print photography books accessible to students and photobook enthusiasts. These are not reprints nor facsimiles but comprehensive studies of rare books.”
Still, books like Ballet are so rare that it is important to have them in any well-produced format. And another book that is worth having is Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s 60 Fotos—while not a rarity it is nonetheless a treat to have in this form.
But these are not simply excerpts or thumbnails. “Each in this series presents the entire content, page for page, of an original master bookwork which, up until now, has been too rare or prohibitively expensive for most to experience. Through a mix of classic and contemporary titles, this series spans the breadth of photographic practice as it has appeared on the printed page, enabling further study into the creation and meanings of these great works of art,” states the website.
The true breadth of each book is shown with “illustrations of every page in the original photobook being featured; contemporary essays by established writers on photography, composed specially for this series; production notes about the production of the original edition; biography and bibliography information about each artist.”