BOOKS

Plein Soleil
With Plein Soleil, Jessica Backhaus explores the photographic possibilities of abstraction. It must be acknowledged that Jessica Backhaus is a talented colorist. In Plein Soleil, she presents a stunning visual symphony where the compositional interplay of color, surface, and form reigns supreme. The images, using a complex visual language, are even more radical and uncompromising than those in the previous project. Through minimalist compilations of reality’s set pieces, she crafts images that transcend the ordinary, transporting viewers into vibrant, luminous worlds full of life energy.
Author: Christiane Stahl
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Design: Hannah Feldmeier
Softcover with thread knot binding
28cm x 36cm
96 pages
41 color ills.
English
2024
Indications of the Sea is a ZINE publication to which I was invited by the French publisher dumas.salchli editions. Indications of the sea was published in early July at the Rencontres d’Arles. A zine with works shot only in black and white, showing unspectacular moments, details and situations near the sea. Included is a color, signed original print in a size of 9 x 12cm and a special intervention appears on one of the pages.
Author: Emre Izat
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: dumas.salchli editions, Arles
Design: Yann Linsart
Cover with silkscreen
Limited edition: 250 numbered copies + signed original photo and an unique original intervention by Jessica Backhaus
28cm x 36cm
32 pages
15 b/w ills.
English
2024
The pictures in Jessica Backhaus‘ new series cut outs are created by using the simplest means and they reduce photography to its basic elements: light and shadow, shape and color. In her last publication A Trilogy (Kehrer, 2017), Jessica Backhaus has taken a path into abstraction, which is consistently continued here – with very analog, photographic methods. Cut out transparent paper reacts to the heat of intense sunlight, deforms, rises, and casts shadows. The photographer who arranged and staged these compositions becomes an astonished observer of events on which she has only limited influence, the documentarist of a visual experimental arrangement, a poetic choreography of intense colors in the sunlight.
Author: Katharina Scriba
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus
Softcover with color edging 22,2 x 31,1cm 128 pages 50 color ills. English 2021
Far away but close showcases work made by Jessica Backhaus during many visits to Chile over the last seven years. „Presence, image, and suggestion: art’s sacred trinity is embodied with such generous concentration in these images by Jessica Backhaus, who we as Chileans should thank for making so exquisitely visible, what we are too distracted to notice. The power of the color that portrays and crowns the subject, provokes the sensation that we are seeing something we see every day but haven’t actually seen before.“ From the introduction by Antonio Skármeta
Author: Antonio Skármeta
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Another Place Press/ Scottish Highlands
Design: Iain Sarjeant, Jessica Backhaus
Softcover: 24 x 19cm  72 pages  52 color and b/w ills. English/Spanish 2019
Jessica Backhaus embarks on her work with an obvious relish in experimentation. The photo artist draws inspiration from the simplicity of everyday things, from unassuming scenes and silence. The artist’s new trilogy brings together three series of approximately 40 works each. The first series, Beyond Blue, is devoted completely to colorful threads, staged against colored backgrounds. They seem to lead a life of their own, tracing the fall of light in the space and forming variously shaped outlines. The viewer feels compelled to linger in this radical reduction, trying to unravel the entanglement of the seemingly unspectacular with the resulting aura of contemplation. In Shifting Clouds, Backhaus considers and documents this very transition – a reality that lies in between things. The second series shows fragments and visions that are poised on the verge of becoming, caught in limbo: reflections, haptically appealing surfaces, shapes imaginatively metamorphosing, upbeat tones, intensely colored sensations. In the third series, New Horizon, the artist presents free-flowing and persuasive poetic impressions. The compositions captivate with their variety and puzzle-like elements. Backhaus is breaking new ground in photography, incorporating components of mixed media, painting, and collage that expand and deepen these abstractions.
Authors: Rémi Coignet, Jean Dykstra, Matthias Harder
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin
Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus
Paperback/Softcover: 30 x 22,6 cm 180 pages 91 ills. English/German 2017
The pictures in Jessica Backhaus‘ new series cut outs are created by using the simplest means and they reduce photography to its basic elements: light and shadow, shape and color. In her last publication A Trilogy (Kehrer, 2017), Jessica Backhaus has taken a path into abstraction, which is consistently continued here – with very analog, photographic methods. Cut out transparent paper reacts to the heat of intense sunlight, deforms, rises, and casts shadows. The photographer who arranged and staged these compositions becomes an astonished observer of events on which she has only limited influence, the documentarist of a visual experimental arrangement, a poetic choreography of intense colors in the sunlight.
Author: Katharina Scriba
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus
Softcover with color edging 22,2 x 31,1cm 128 pages 50 color ills. English 2021
„Once, Still and Forever“ sets out a quest for traces of time and meaning – things that once were, still are and will stay forever. Some of the works in this latest photography series by Jessica Backhaus date from her last year in New York, where she made her home for 14 years. But others tell of her radical break with the past and her return to her old homeland, Europe. The personal and cultural changes honed her awareness and caused her to contemplate the fragility of our emotions and existence – thoughts the photographer translates into her own characteristic visual language. Darker nuances come to the fore in the still lifes; picture planes splinter, hinting at powerful transformations. At 16, Backhaus left Germany, only returning to Berlin 22 years later. What was once, still is and will forever remain is the artist’s infallible instinct for pictorial composition, a deftness she continues to take to new heights. Her views of ostensibly prosaic scenes open up to us a cosmos of unforeseen meanings while evoking a mood of affectionate familiarity.
Authors: Elisabeth Biondi, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Jessica Backhaus
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin
Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus
Hardcover: 24 x 29,5cm 88 pages 55 color ills. English/German 2012
Jessica Backhaus is that rare photographer today who can capture nuances of everyday life in combination with a sensational feeling for color. Within all three of her published series, Jesus and the Cherries, What Still Remains and One Day in November (Kehrer 2005 and 2008), we witness the most subtle, yet vibrant use of color as it reflects off surfaces or embraces people and their possessions. It is color at the service of her subject, and she embraces the world around her with considerable tenderness and precision. In her most recent series I Wanted To See The World, we are totally immersed in her rippling colors as we see both the natural world and man-made structures in reflection on the surface of rivers and lakes. In particular the works from Venice offer the most intriguing palette of soft oranges, pale yellows and strange grays.
Editor & Author: Laurence Miller
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Laurence Miller Gallery, New York & Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin
Design: Loreen Lampe and Jessica Backhaus
Softcover 31 x 23 cm 80 pages 41 color ills. English 2010
Jessica Backhaus’ book is a tribute to Gisèle Freund on what would have been her 100th birthday in December 2008. The book One Day In November is a testament to the friendship between the great photographer and a young photography student in Paris during the 1990’s. Intended as a posthumous birthday present, Jessica Backhaus compiled a collection of images that are meant to convey visually what Gisèle Freund taught her and what Gisèle meant to her. Gisèle Freund herself can certainly be considered as one of the great artistic and intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Her impact can be traced to both her photographic and literary work and to her own colorful biography.
Author: Jessica Backhaus
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Design: Katharina Stumpf and Jessica Backhaus
Hardcover 21,5 x 24,5 cm 128 pages 99 color and 1 b/w ills. German/English/French 2008
What Still Remains is the title of a photo series made up of 65 works created since 2006 in various locations. After her first book, Jesus and the Cherries, about life in rural Poland, the German-American photographer Jessica Backhaus now pursues in this new cycle of photographs the question of why things that have been forgotten or left behind pop up in specific places and then seem to take on a life of their own. Backhaus has succeeded here in capturing motifs that exude an air both sublime and enigmatic. Our gaze is transfixed as we attempt to unravel the mystery of what makes these banal objects so intriguing. In their composed beauty and expressiveness, Backhaus’ photographs are reminiscent of still life paintings. But unlike the classical paintings depicting what were often artificial tableaux of objects meant to evoke aspects of vanitas, Backhaus manages to make time and transience palpable by framing scenes she comes upon by accident.
Author: Jean Dykstra Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Design: Katharina Stumpf and Jessica Backhaus
Hardcover 28 x 25 cm 96 pages 43 color ills. English 2008
The Collector’s edition is available with a signed and numbered C-print inserted in the book. Sheet format ca. 28 x 24 cm. Choice of two images: ”Destiny”, „Marlon Brando“. Edition of 25 each.
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg

The photographer Jessica Backhaus has traveled in the region of the Polish province of Pomosrskie repeatedly since 1993. She spent a total of three and a half years portraying the town of Netno and its residents. She shows people in their apartments, at work, and in the untouched Polish landscape. With a sure eye and an unusual colour language, she points out important but easily overlooked details: plastic flowers and crocheted pillowcases, images of saints and lace doilies, and cherries preserved in mason jars. The pictures are neither intrusive nor tactless; she encounters people with dignity and full of admiration for the way of life of Poland’s rural population. The intimate character of the photos suggests that the German- American photographer must have developed a special relationship to her subject: In Backhaus photographs we feel the warmth, cordiality, and authenticity with which she was received in Poland. The photographers clear gaze captured the beauty of everyday details and moods. Jesus and the Cherries describes a Poland still a long way from the modernizations that full integration in the European Union will bring. Jessica Backhaus thus tells a tale of traditional ways of life that may already belong to the past.
Authors: Monica Rydiger, Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen
Artist: Jessica Backhaus
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Design: Anja Aronska and Jessica Backhaus
Hardcover 24,6 x 32,8 cm 144 pages 94 color photographs English/German 2005

„Jesus and the Cherries“ is also available as Limited Edition: with signed original print in handmade slipcase (Atelier Dermont Duval), dust jacket with Cerata. Choice of three images: “Violetta by the lake”, “Blue Spoon”, “A Renovated life”. Edition of 25 each.

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg

This collector’s edition of the book includes a signed original photograph and is housed in a handcrafted box that incorporates an authentic piece of Polish porcelain and is draped with Cerata-cloth (Atelier Dermont Duval, Paris). Choice of three images: “Olga”, “Pink Pillow”, “Carrots by the sink”. Edition of 10 each.

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg

In 2009 photo artist Harvey Benge had the idea of getting a group of photographers together to shoot a book in a day. On June 21st, 2010, – the day of the solstice – ten of the world’s leading photographers of today each shot a series for a book, in different places around the world. The individual concepts for the „One Day“ series are as multifaceted as the work of the included artists.

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin

Ten half linen bound hardcovers in a slipcase 16,5 x 22 cm 304 pages 194 color ills. without text 2010

In 2009 Jessica Backhaus moved from New York to Berlin. In her work, she concentrates on her surrounding and her every day life, which is influenced deeply by the changing of her place to live. To capture the daily banal motifs, to find the poetic moments which are more than the surface, is the root of her work.

Publisher: Revolver Publishing, Berlin

Edition in a box, 3 original color prints, 35,5cm x 28cm, signed and numbered, 25 copies.

Since the inception of photography as an art form nearly 200 years ago, women have played an important role in the development of the genre, often pushing boundaries and defying social convention. This comprehensive volume features fifty-five of the most important women photographers. Each artist is profiled in spreads featuring splendid reproductions of their key works and an in-depth overview of their careers and contributions to the art of photography. Biographical information for each subject and a contextual essay focusing on the impact of women in the history of the medium makes this an excellent illustrated reference.

Editor & Author: Boris Friedewald
Artists: Various
Publisher: Prestel Verlag, Munich/London/New York
Hardcover: 27,6cm x 21,6cm 240 pages English 2014

Die Geschichte der Fotografie ist auch eine Geschichte der Fotografinnen. Frauen eroberten sich dieses künstlerische Feld von Anfang an und trugen Wesentliches zu seiner Entwicklung bei. Der weibliche Blick auf die Welt ist ein anderer als der männliche – diese vermeintliche Binsenweisheit belegen die in diesem Band vereinten Fotografinnen mit ihren Arbeiten auf vielfältige, berührende und faszinierende Weise. 55 Fotografinnen aus zwei Jahrhunderten und von fünf Kontinenten werden porträtiert, darunter so berühmte Namen wie Eve Arnold, Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman oder Herlinde Koelbl, aber auch bislang weniger bekannte Künstlerinnen wie Zanele Muholi aus Südafrika oder Shirana Shahbazi aus Teheran. Jede Fotografin wird mit einem kenntnisreichen und zugleich leicht lesbaren Text zu ihrem Leben und Werk sowie zwei bis vier repräsentativen Abbildungen ihres Schaffens vorgestellt – eine Weltgeschichte der Fotografie aus weiblicher Sicht.
Editor & Author: Boris Friedewald
Artists: Various
Publisher: Prestel Verlag, Munich/London/New York
Hardcover: 27,6cm x 21,6cm 240 pages German 2014

This book celebrates the new creative processes of the modern photographic era, in which blogs and Instagram streams function alongside analogue albums and contact sheets, and the traditional notebook takes the form of Polaroid studies, smartphone pictures, diaristic projects, found photography, experimental image-making and self-published photo-zines. Each photographer presents his or her sketchbook: several pages of images that convey his or her working methods and thought processes. These intimate, one-off presentations are accompanied by engaging interviews that reveal how the simple act of pressing a shutter can capture and express a fully realized personal vision.
Editors & Authors: Stephen McLaren and Bryan Formhals
Artists: Various
Publisher: Thames & Hudson, London
Hardcover: 22,0cm x 29,70cm 320 pages 520 ills. English 2014

Welche Rolle spielt die zeitgenössische Fotografie in der Diskussion des vielschichtigen Begriffs Heimat ? Als Medium, das gleichermaßen Vorstellungen prägt und Erinnerungen konstituiert? Nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges ist die Frage nach identitätsstiftenden Bezugspunkten in den Ländern Ost- und Ostmitteleuropas besonders bedeutsam. Der Ausstellungskatalog beleuchtet diese Fragestellung vor dem Hintergrund des gesellschaftlich-politischen Wandels aus historischer wie aus aktueller Perspektive. Die in Binnen- wie in Außensicht entstandenen Bildwelten eröffnen ein Spannungsfeld zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft, Tradition und Fortschritt sowie lokalen und globalen Entwicklungen.
Authors: Agnes Matthias and Manfred Seifert
Artists: Various
Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld
Softcover: 22,80cm x 27,50cm 160 pages German 2014

Erstmalig gegenübergestellt: Künstleratelier und Küche als sinnliche Orte der KreativitätDie Nähe zwischen künstlerischem Schaffen und Kochkunst ist faszinierend und dennoch wenig beachtet. Die Publikation richtet den Blick auf das facettenreiche Verhältnis beider Produktionsstätten als Arbeitsräume freier Inspiration und geheimer Alchemie, als Orte kreativen Chaos und ordnenden Denkens sowie sozialer Repräsentation individuellen Rückzugs. Die Bedeutung und Darstellung von Atelier und Küche heute und in der Geschichte werden betrachtet: Künstlerische Arbeitsstätten haben sich von handwerklichen Meisterbetrieben über repräsentative Ateliers und fabrikähnliche Lofts zu hochtechnisierten Multimedia-Labs entwickelt. Parallel vollzog sich der Wandel von der archaischen Feuerstelle über die bäuerliche Wohn- und effiziente Garküche zur High-Tech-Ausstattunf. Gezeigt werden Holzstiche aus dem 16. Jahrhundert und Gemälde des Goldenen Zeitalters Pieter Bruegels d. Ä. sowie Arbeiten von Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol und Zeitgenossen wie Cindy Sherman und Erwin Wurm.
Editor: MARTa Herford
Artists: Various
Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern
Hardcover: 29,0cm x 22,6cm 272 pages English/German 2012

Die Deutsche Börse Group in Frankfurt konnte ihre Fotosammlung Art Collection Deutsche Börse an den Hauptsitzen in Deutschland und Luxemburg in den letzten Jahren um eine Vielzahl von großformatigen Werken vorwiegend jüngerer Künstler erweitern. Fotokünstler nutzen eine nie gekannte Vielfalt an Gestaltungs- und Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten. Über einen reinen Sammlungsband hinausgehend, präsentiert so der repräsentativ und aufwendig ausgestattete, großformatige dritte Bildband der erfolgreichen Reihe, XL Photography 3, alle wesentlichen Positionen der Fotokunst der letzten zehn Jahre: Paul Almasy, Jessica Backhaus, Sibylle Bergemann, Pietro Donzelli, Alberto Garcia Alix, Seydou Keï ta, Yoon Jean Lee, Boris Mikhailov, Simon Norfolk, Martin Parr, Simon Roberts, Ricarda Roggan, Wilhelm Schürmann, Alfred Seiland, Malick Sidibé, Alec Soth und Joel Sternfeld.
Authors: Felix Höpfner, Ulrich Meißner, Nicolas Nonnenmacher, Anne-Marie Beckmann
Artists: Various
Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern
Hardcover: 32,6cm x 32,2cm 144 pages German 2007

Design: Hannah Feldmeier and Jessica Backhaus

Softcover with color edging 22,2 x 31,1cm 128 pages 50 color ills. English 2021