Sunday Zine Review #100: When Our Enamel Rots by Viktoria A. Lisbet

After more than a year and a half reviewing zines almost every Sunday, I've reached the 100th review! It's an exciting time and I guess 100 is a number that could be considered a milestone. 

There won't be more reviews for a couple of months after this one. I need some time to focus on my parallel projects (Future Positive), but I promise I'll be back with some great zines. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the Facebook Page for zine-related news!

When Our Enamel Rots by Viktoria A.Lisbet is one of the Pogo Books' publications I received months ago. Viktoria is an Austrian photographer currently living in the United States who likes to shoot highly-saturated images and what he describes as scenes of "slapstick erotica".

The book is a collection of all the scenes along with a selection of some of his personal images.  Viktoria's portraits are a mixture between candid and staged situations where the subjects are presented in a surreal manner, whilst his still life photography is random and direct.

When Our Enamel Rots is the second monograph that the Austrian photographer produced for Pogo Books last year. You can find more information about Viktoria's work in this interviews with No Thoughts and Kaltblut Magazine.

You can check all the previous reviews here and follow Sunday Zine Review on FB.

Sunday Zine Review #45: At Night by Jean-Michael Seminaro

Carl Platon from Svärta messaged me a few weeks ago to ask if I would like to review some Pogo Books publications. I said yes, of course, and my first review went up on his site earlier this week.

This is what I wrote about At Night by Jean-Michael Seminaro:

A few weeks ago I was sent a bunch of publications by Pogo Books to review. I first knew about this German independent publisher a couple of years ago, when they added me on Flickr. Since then, I’ve been interested in their books and selection of artists, but I hadn’t had a chance of taking a look at their publications until now.

I must admit that the books Claudio Pfeifer, founder of Pogo Books, has sent have lived up to my expectations. I love the different formats and paper choices, and as I said before, the artists curation is excellent.

I’ve chosen At Night by Jean-Michael Seminaro for my first review, probably because it’s quite different from the rest of books I was sent. In At Night Jean-Michael collects suburban moments originated from a fail or a miss shot.

This 16-pages book is in fact a representation of everything that happens at night in those quiet suburban neighbourhoods. Jean-Michael says that in most occasions, the pictures were really dark and the digital process had to be pushed in order to obtain clearer images. The result was grainy pictures, which were intensified by the use of the built-in flash at night.

The process is simple, but I find the results really interesting. The grain creates a voyeur and amateur aesthetics that really works with the suburban theme and all those gardens and house exteriors that Jean-Michael has snapped for this book.

The only negative aspect is the length of the book. After flipping through the 16 pages you really wish you could see more of everything that is going on at Jean-Michael's neighbourhood during those winter nights

Remember to check Svärta for more zine reviews, interviews and cool articles. And don't forget to pay a visit to Pogo Book's shop to buy this and other amazing photo books!

*You can check all the previous reviews here and follow Sunday Zine Review on FB. If you want to get your zine reviewed, leave a comment below or drop me a message to igortermenon@gmail.com*