Ray’s A Laugh by Richard Billingham, MACK, 2024.
“First published in 1996 to enormous acclaim, Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh is one of the most significant photobooks of the turn of the twentieth century, as well as a cornerstone work of the Young British Artists generation. Formed of starkly intimate images of Billingham’s often chaotic parental home under the heavy effects of alcoholism and poverty, the book was produced in the 1990s with editors Michael Collins and Julian Germain. This new edition restores Billingham’s original vision for his deeply personal work for the first time. Including numerous unseen images and a distinct approach to sequencing inflected by Billingham’s training as a painter: it constitutes a ‘director’s cut’ and reintroduces a vital and consistently challenging work for a new era.”
A Period of Juvenile Prosperity is a stunning photographic work by Mike Brodie that captures the spirit of youth and freedom. Brodie, a self-taught photographer from Arizona, embarked on a train-hopping adventure across America in his early twenties, documenting the lives of the young and restless who similarly eschewed the traditional norms of society.
