The photobook visually and materially contextualizes arrangements of photographs and brings them into a sensually tangible form. The book format, the materiality of the paper, and the type of binding have just as much of an effect on the viewer as the selection of images, their positioning in the layout, typography, and the texts. The artist and theorist Bettina Lockemann provides an approach to the medium from a research perspective: considering the photobook as an independent subject of art theories, her phenomenological discussion complements methodological lines of thought. An important contribution to the photobook as an independent field of research, Lockemann elaborates precise terms for analyzing this medium. Through a practice-based examination of contemporary photobooks, this guide emphasizes the status of the photobook as an artwork in its own right.

BETTINA LOCKEMANN (*1971) is an artist and scholar specialized in artistic documentary photography. After studying art photography and media art in Leipzig and earning a PhD in art history at the ABK Stuttgart she was professor for practice and theory of photography at the HBK Braunschweig for five years. She lives in Cologne.