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WATCH: The Photographic Book: Past, Present and Future

The Photographic Book: Past, Present and Future, a fascinating conversation with historian Michael Dawson, founder of Nazraeli Press Chris Pichler, and artists Alia Malley and Todd Hido.

Michael Dawson and Chris Pichler discuss the origins of Nazraeli Press, the early years of the market for contemporary photography books, and the future of niche publishing in the 21st century, followed by a discussion with photographers Alia Malley and Todd Hido who worked with Pichler to produce books of their artwork published by Nazraeli Press. The discussion focuses on the process of transforming the artist’s vision to the printed page.

Nazraeli Press was founded in 1990, Nazraeli Press has published over 600 titles on the fine and applied arts. The press is known for its unorthodox use of common materials - such as papers, wood, plastic, metals - and for introducing elements of handwork into otherwise mass-produced objects. The press’ books have themselves been the subject of exhibitions and books about books. Complete holdings of Nazraeli Press books are in the permanent special collections of many important institutional libraries, including those of Stanford University; University of California, Los Angeles; Yale University Art Museum; The Huntington Library, Pasadena; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Michael Dawson is a private dealer and appraiser specializing in rare books and fine art photography, including historical photographs of California and the Southwest. He has written widely on photography and has owned and operated his own gallery as well as the celebrated Dawson’s Book Shop in Los Angeles—a business established by his grandfather in 1905. Dawson's writing is included in LA’s Early Moderns: Art/Architecture/Photography, published by Balcony Press in 2003, Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Los Angeles, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2005 and William Reagh: A Long Walk Downtown: Photographs of Los Angeles and Southern California, 1936-1991 published by The Book Club of California in 2012.

Alia Malley is a Los Angeles based artist. She received her BA in Critical Film Studies from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and her MFA in Visual Arts from University of California Riverside. She works with photography and video to explore modes of representation — specifically the roles of landscape, cinematic narrative of place, technology, and human geography in structures of power. Malley’s work is held in numerous private and public collections, among them the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the UCLA Library Special Collections, and the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection.

Todd Hido is a San Francisco Bay Area-based artist whose work has been featured in Artforum, The New York Times Magazine, Eyemazing, Wired, Elephant, FOAM, and Vanity Fair. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Getty, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the de Young Museum, the Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as in many other public and private collections.

Image: Page spread from Alia Malley's Captains of the Dead Sea, published by Nazraeli Press.

The Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles makes high-quality arts programming available to everyone. Events are free to PAC members. For more information about PAC membership visit paclosangeles.com. Non-members are encouraged to make a pay-what-you-can contribution. Suggested donation is $10.