Bøker av Clement Cheroux

From his early encounters with the Surrealists, his film work and his experiences in the Second World War, to the development of his own personal aesthetic, the concept of the decisive moment, and the foundation of Magnum Photos, Henri Cartier-Bresson's influence on the world has been profound. This book tells his life story through his images.

Offering a new perspective on Weegee's oeuvre, The Society of the Spectacle presents the photographer's iconic images beside lesser-known works. There's a mystery to Weegee. The American photographer's career seems to be split in two. One side includes his sensational photography printed in North American tabloids: corpses of gangsters lying in pools of their own blood, bodies trapped in battered vehicles, kingpins looking sinister behind the bars of prison wagons, dilapidated slums consumed by fire, and other harrowing onevidence of the lives of the underprivileged in New York from 1935 to 1945. Then come the festive photographs - glamorous parties, performances by entertainers, jubilant crowds, openings and premieres - to which we must add a vast array of portraits of public figures that Weegee delighted in distorting using a rich palette of tricks between 1948 and 1951, a practice he pursued until the end of his life. How can these diametrically opposed bodies of work coexist? Critics have enjoyed highlighting the opposition between the two periods, praising the former and disparaging the latter. The Society of the Spectacle seeks to reconcile the two parts of Weegee by showing that, beyond formal differences, the photographer's approach is critically coherent. In the first part of his career, which coincided with the rise of the tabloid press, Weegee was an active participant in transforming news into spectacle. To show this, he often included spectators, or other photographers, in the foreground of his images. In the second half of his career, Weegee mocked the Hollywood spectacular: its ephemeral glory, adoring crowds and social scenes. Some years before the Situationist International, his photography presented an incisive critique of the Society of the Spectacle.

The coronation of George VI on 12 May 1937 was one of the biggest media events of the interwar period. While other photographers focused on the new King, his family and the ceremonial splendour of the day, Henri Cartier-Bresson turned his lens on the crowds that gathered in the streets of London to watch the pageantry. In a witty reversal of the expected order of proceedings, he shows us ordinary people of all ages and walks of life, some climbing on monuments or each other¿s shoulders, others straining to get a better view with cardboard periscopes and mirrors on sticks. A few even slump on the ground, the festivities having proved too much. Presented alongside contemporary news clippings from around the world, these remarkable images reflect Cartier-Bresson¿s unmistakeable photographic eye and capture the British public at a unique historical moment.

The perfect primer on acclaimed French artist Sophie Calle. Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist and conceptual artist. Her work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is renowned for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives, which she has deployed in her acclaimed works Suite Venitienne, The Hotel and Address Book. She has had major exhibitions all over the world, including at the 2007 Venice Biennale, the Whitechapel Gallery in London, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, and has worked closely with the writer Paul Auster. The Guardian called her 'the Marcel Duchamp of dirty laundry', and she was among the names in Blake Gopnik's list 'The 10 Most Important Artists of Today', with Gopnik arguing, 'It is the unartiness of Calle's work - its refusal to fit any of the standard pigeonholes, or over anyone's sofa - that makes it deserve space in museums.'

The official publication celebrating Magnum Photos' 70th anniversary: a totally fresh and perceptive view of the legendary agency's history and archive.