August 15, 2007
Why I make books
Daniel Power
New York City, USA. 1989. Aerial view of Manhattan with the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center. © Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos
Some people ask me why I make books, in my case illustrated volumes of photography and the photographic image. To some, I say "We're stupid and don't know any better," and to others I lament it's the only thing we know how to do, and such is our lot. But then, truth be told, thinking about it, it's our native human desire to tell stories, or more precisely help others tell them, and our medium is the photographic image, and few have become literate in appreciating it (hence the minute audience), and even fewer in constructing it well, even among the highly regarded publishers.
So how do those of us with such limited practical aptitude or even intelligence about smarter things to do with our lives and scarce monies continue to persevere, both in surviving and in looking for ways to tell yet more illustrated stories, despite apparent lack of even token consumer appeal?
We get lucky.
Yes, getting lucky is the great successful secret in publishing: friend-of-friend, neighbor, romantic entanglement, happenstance, and most importantly, kismet are the foundations of some of the most successful publishing lists and individual titles we know today. In publishing, inevitably, something will happen. You just have to be smart enough to recognize it and good enough to do something with it.
Case in point: I knew Dee Vitale from her days with Thea Westreich, dating back to D.A.P. days, (Dee's been Penn's studio manager for a long time now). She recommended that her friend Vincent Katz, son of Alex, come see us, and he pitched a book of his poems coupled with evocative watercolor-like renderings of the Manhattan skyline at dusk. We thought it was neat, albeit wistful as a commercial product, and we didn¹t know any better, so we published Pearl in 1998 and have since sold about 478 copies. A not successful venture.
There was something sweet and pure and calling about the book, and it is a lovely thing to hold, read, and look at. But a decent-sized money-losing venture. We sort of knew that, hoped against it, but still felt it had to be done.
A year later Vincent calls and proposes a book with Francesco Clemente, who was to have a retrospective a year later, with his essay about Clemente's little-known, yet mesmerizing watercolors. We made a large format book, and it sold like crazy, even selling out, and it was cited later that year by John Russell in The New York Times Book Review as one of the best art books of the year.
Life is Paradise did well enough to produce another half dozen Pearl-type books the following year: States by Christopher Griffith; Brooklyn Kings by Martin Dixon; Yes Rasta by Patrick Cariou; Afghanistan Diary by Ed Grazda; How to Touch What by Eve Sonneman and Lawrence Weiner; Transitions and Exits by Ari Marcopoulos. All exquisite and individualistic artists' books and street documents. All told, about a few thousand sold. Combined.
Bookcovers of various powerHouse books.
Fast forward to 2001: New York September 11 by Magnum Photographers sold over 200,000 copies. With Magnum we donated over $600 thousand to the New York Times Neediest Cases 9/11 Fund. (They later said we covered all legal expenses for fund cases. Great). But this one volume begat Arms Against Fury by Magnum, assembled by the irrepressible Robert Dannin (an amazing document of Afghanistan done a year later that did much to illuminate a civilization and a people paying for their zealot leaders' sins.) And New Yorkers by Magnum Photographers, an unlikely and deeply thoughtful look from the Magnum archives of the New York you never knew: the quiet, pearl-like moments of perfect symmetry of mayhem and beauty, the drive and reach of human potential and the bitter dregs of failure. Both books gems, neither sellers. But they happened for a reason: we and Magnum wanted to do them. And the 9/11 book allowed us to do them.
Only those with a passion, or vice, for the image in book form - its embedded narrative, its quixotic meanderings in search of meanings, its bewildering non sequiturs, at end its beguiling presence - could take a blue moon bounty and pour it into a dozen little stars, in the hope that one, maybe yes all of them in one way or another, find their reach, their perch in the constellation of great, soul-stirring photo books. There is something quixotic about it, yes, but for those of us residing in La Mancha, we know no other obsession. And one day we will get lucky and beget more little stars.
Visit the powerHouse Books website and the website of the great powerHouse Arena.
Published on the Magnum Blog on August 15, 2007
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