LibraryJournal.com

As the International Center of Photography (ICP) enters its 30th year of operations, it has a lot more than a vast photographic collection and a prestigious founder to brag about. In 2001, the Cornell Capa–founded institution significantly expanded to a new 17,000-square-foot gallery space in Midtown Manhattan. Located just up the street from the staid lions that guard NYPL's main branch, the airy two-floor museum was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and equipped to show and preserve all forms of contemporary and historical photography. ICP also maintains a school across the street, as well as a research and reference library. The only thing missing from ICP's program was a consistent publishing arm to preserve a record of its shows and make its permanent collection of 95,000 items more widely available.

Enter Steidl Publishers of Göttingen, Germany, an inventive publisher of fine photography books directed by Gerhard Steidl. "Gerhard said, 'Let's create an ICP/Steidl imprint that will be identified in the larger world,' " explains ICP director Willis Hartshorn. And while ICP had long been interested in creating a publishing program, they just weren't ready until the fall of 2003. "We always had the content but hadn't had the staffing required. But we now have three new curators, all of whom have experience as editors and authors. It was largely the momentum of the staff that made this possible," he says, adding, "We also had the good fortune of getting some funding."

Steidl Publishers is a perfect match for the mission, and the quality of the ICP/Steidl imprint will be in keeping with Steidl's artful design, with each book treated individually. Founded in 1968 as a publisher of both art books and fiction (particularly Günter Grass, a name that lends the publisher some stability), in 1996 Steidl began publishing photography in earnest. "Gerhard's work is driven by a passion that is unique," observes Hartshorn. "He was trained as an artist and worked with artists like Joseph Beuys and Klaus Staeck." The publisher's commitment to design can be seen in some of the most gorgeously produced books in the field, with recent editions by Paul Graham, Rosalind Solomon, Robert Polidori, and Jeff Wall (to name those recently reviewed in LJ).

Steidl is unusual in that it is both publisher and printer, in touch with every step of the manufacturing process. "It's a unique setup," says Hartshorn. "He has a group of buildings, one for design, another for printing, and so forth, so it's efficient. We wouldn't be able to do as ambitious a program with any other publisher because of this arrangement. What makes it work is that we provide all content and Gerhard will design, print, and bind the books."

The imprint will publish four to six books a year, including exhibition catalogs, scholarly monographs, artists' books, and a series of broadly appealing, same-format books, largely drawn from ICP's permanent collection. "From a museum's point of view this is not only a viable business deal but about permanence for the work that we've done."

The imprint's first two titles are the catalog for ICP's first "Triennial" and a book by one of the triennial's participants, contemporary photographer Susan Meiselas. ICP curators Brian Wallis, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers, and Edward Earle demonstrate their vision and professionalism in Strangers: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, for which they selected the artists and wrote the essays. The purpose of the triennial is to present a critical assessment of the current state of photography and video and possibly identify themes and trends. The book showcases about 200 works by 40 contemporary international artists that show a great variety in technique, with video stills presented alongside portraits, "art" photos, and more traditional black-and-white shots. All are linked through the titular theme, reflecting the ways artists confront "the stranger." While it is particularly difficult to contain moving images in book form, this catalog gives each artist a series of reproductions and a one-page curatorial assessment.

In Encounters with the Dani: Stories from the Baliem Valley, Meiselas gathers words and images the from the six decades since the West's "discovery" of the Dani, indigenous people of the West Papuan highland. The book documents these encounters by assembling the words and images from missionaries, colonists, anthropologists, and contemporary "eco-tourists," inspired by Meiselas's own research and travels. Facsimiles of journal entries, newspaper clippings, comics, maps, and more, with some explanatory notes on the place often called "Shangri-La," reveal the way outsiders have looked at the Dani and how the Dani have in turn looked at these portrayals and been changed by them.

The books are distributed worldwide, via D.A.P. in the United States and Thames & Hudson elsewhere. The imprint, the result of what Hartshorn and Steidl call a "mutual commitment to photography" (not to mention their outstanding track records in the field), further allows ICP to live up to its name as an international purveyor of photographic history and art.