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About Publisher
Bromide Books is a young independent publishing company from Hong Kong.
Founded by a French long-time photography lover, Bromide Books opened its doors in 2016. Focused solely on photography, Bromide Books shows dedication to promoting the young, unknown, and emerging talents, while helping book lovers find printed archives from the rare and established photographers.
For inquiries contact Alexandre Jutard-Verdon, alexandre@bromidebooks.com
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International sales: bromidestore.fws.store
Sales in Asia: sales@bromidebooks.com
Cupboard Memories
In Cupboard Memories the Chinese artist Xia Boqian photographs people with depression, and other mental illnesses due to events they did not want to share publicly. Mixed in are photographs which cover secrets that are lighter in nature—hidden emotions, sentimental affairs, secret romances, private moments, and improvised stages.
Publisher: Bromide Books
Artist(s): Xia Boqian
Contributor(s): Foreword by Keiko Nomura; Translated by Yuka Katagiri; Edited by Xia Boqian and 13BD05726; Designed by 13BD05726
Publication Date: 2018
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 190(w) x 270(h) mm
Pages: 112
ISBN: 978-988-77600-4-7
Price: 289 HKD
TO PURCHASE: bromidebooks.com/publications/cupboard-xia/
About Author(s)
Xia Boqian was born in 1992 in Sichuan, China.
For Xia, photography is something meaningful—more than just printed pictures. They are also stories that have happened at particular moments, and visible pieces of one’s memory that will last and can be passed on to others.
Speaking about her work, Xia says: “As a photographer, I don’t like to put tags or descriptions to my works. Although I have my feelings to express through my photos, different people may have different understanding when they see the pictures. I would like to leave some space for people to think, to feel. From landscape photography to portraits and then back to landscape photography again, I thought through a lot and got deeper understandings, I will keep making projects on those two areas, but in a different way. I plan to make some documentaries in the future, about humanity and nature.”
Off Season
“If there is some strangeness in the exploration of new lands in search of memories, it comes from the possibility that we do not necessarily find what we were hoping for. Sometimes, one finds oneself in torpor, in the expectation of what will never ever be again.” - Fabien Fourcaud.
The book starts with an introduction, like a movie. The search for something already gone, the wandering in the part of an infinity loop, even the brightest sun is cold here.
The original 2013 series by the artist who photographed the off-season seaside on various locations along the French coast has been widely augmented with unreleased pictures to become a dream-like book of 112 pages of fine reproductions.
Wanderings from the inside cities to the seashore—conveying a sense of melancholy, nostalgia, and the French je-ne-sais-quoi—are delivered in a pink cotton candy delicate hardcover.
Dream on.
Publisher: Bromide Books
Artist(s): Fabien Fourcaud
Contributor(s): Text by Fabien Fourcaud; Translated by Yuka Katagiri; Edited by Fabien Fourcaud and 13BD05726; Designed by 13BD05726
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 220(w) x 287(h) mm
Pages: 112
ISBN: 978-988-77600-3-0
Price: 289 HKD
TO PURCHASE: bromidebooks.com/publications/offseason/
About Author(s)
Fabien Fourcaud is a self-educated French photographer, born in 1979.
He spent his childhood on the French Riviera (Agen, south of France) and has been living and working in Paris since 2007. His approach has been influenced by his former responsibilities as Creative and Experience Designer in the field of 3D and Virtual Reality. Gilles Deleuze’s writings paved the way to his definition of a new concept of representation. In addition to the exhibition New Topographics, photographers such as Stephen Shore and the Bechers weighted significantly on his practice of photography.
Fabien Fourcaud focuses on endlessly tracking breaking points as well as blurred areas within landscapes. He bears particular attention to non-places and likes to highlight the thin barrier between presence and absence. The way he treats his images, which are significantly desaturated, gives the feeling of a near-picture and questions the very fine line between real and virtual.
Omission
Omission is a curated selection of works by the German artist duo Billy and Hells.
Perfecting their style through trial and error, Billy and Hells managed to create a world of their own—full of rich textures, sumptuous palettes of colors, driving us in compositions and atmosphere that emulates classical paintings.
This unusual unfold-to-read format lets us enter gradually in the spirit of these masters—allowing us to gradually come closer to the pitch dark and notice the subtle color changes, with a final the same-size as their gallery prints.
This book was intentionally made to not stay on bookshelves.
Publisher: Bromide Books
Artist(s): Billy and Hells
Contributor(s): Designed by 13BD05726
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: Five Free Sheets, Four Cross Folds, and Wrapping Band
Dimensions: 172.5(w) x 250(h) mm (folded) | 690(w) x 1,000(h) mm (unfolded)
ISBN: 978-988-77600-6-1
Price: 380 HKD
TO PURCHASE: bromidebooks.com/publications/omission-billyhells
About Author(s)
Billy & Hells is the pseudonym of the creative duo formed by Berlin-based photographers Anke Linz and Andreas Oettinger. The photographers met in the mid-1980s and shortly after, began collaborating creatively. Since 1995, the two have worked together under the name Billy and Hells.
Their namesake expresses the same sense of edginess and mystery that their distinct images depict. Billy and Hells’ photographs exist in a world of in-betweens. Their deceptively simple, straightforward portraits convey a certain complexity. The archetypal characters depicted in their photographs—mothers, soldiers, cowboys, nurses, and teachers—possess an underlying sense of mystery, hinting at the duality of the sitter as well as the fictional world they inhabit.
Although Billy and Hells’ images call upon historical and art historical references, their portraits are not burdened by the stipulations of historical recreations. Instead, seamlessly blending past and present, reality and fantasy, their photographs become a nostalgic diary, purposefully left open for interpretation. Their portraits combine elaborate, hand-painted backgrounds and draw inspiration from countless samples of fabrics, color compositions, and clothing that generate a distinct mood for each portrait.
Anke Linz and Andreas Oettinger live and work in Berlin.
Sensuality, Tension, Hope, and Other Ingredients
The young photographer Wu Yuhang locks himself in his darkroom to project his feelings on instant films. The chemicals are manhandled, jogged, crushed, pressed, and overexposed with various light sources.
Speaking about this particular work, Wu says: “I write the negative film in an interaction between light and body [...] The absence of the camera allows light to drift away from the traces of existence. It allows photography to return to the medium itself.”
Publisher: Bromide Books
Artist(s): Wu Yuhang
Contributor(s): Foreword by Wu Yuhang; Translated by Yuka Katagiri; Edited by Wu Yuhang and 13BD05726; Designed by 13BD05726
Publication Date: 2020
Binding: Lay Flat Binding with French Flap Cover
Dimensions: 200(w) x 270(h) mm
Pages: 68
ISBN: 978-988-77600-8-5
Price: 289 HKD
TO PURCHASE: bromidebooks.com/publications/sensuality-tension-hope-by-wu-yuhang
About Author(s)
Wu Yuhang was born in 1994 in Chongqing, China.
Wu’s works usually start from the photographic medium. He manipulates and intervenes the negative through the perceptual potential of the bodyand extends the ontological language of photography in its subtle chemical reactions and deterioration process. The hallucination images produced in the “traumatic process” are treated as a form of meditation to heal the soul; Wu explores the spiritual power of art in its abstract fragmentation form.
Specimen: Human Organs Under a Ruler
This book is a confrontation of the inner human.
Speaking about this particular work, Li says: “I would choose carefully a black and white film in smooth and soft light in an attempt to protect the viewers from strong visual stimulation and guide them to break through the visual appearance in their minds to find the connotation.”
Publisher: Bromide Books
Artist(s): Li Zhaohui
Contributor(s): Text by Li Zhaohui; Interview by Dr. Maija Tammi; Translated by Yuka Katagiri; Designed by 13BD05726
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 285(w) x 385(h) mm
Pages: 64
ISBN: 978-988-77600-2-3
Price: 380 HKD
TO PURCHASE: bromidebooks.com/publications/specimen-by-li-zhaohui
About Author(s)
Born in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, Li (b. 1968) graduated from Beijing University with a major in Biology in 1989. He had worked in the medical field for 20 years before becoming a full-time artist in 2010.