Issue 41 - Contents

Teju Cole

Pharmakon

In his third MACK title, Pharmakon — meaning poison, remedy, or scapegoat, Teju Cole explores the material of absence through images woven together with 12 short stories of post-apocalyptic or crisis scenarios, where displaced individuals, mortality, environmental threats, and bureaucratic challenges loom. An apt title, as Anneka French writes, for a book carrying significant political weight, Pharmakon indicating something that might cure, kill, or displace blame – feasibly all of these things simultaneously.

Aladin Borioli

Bannkörbe

Swiss artist Aladin Borioli advances his decade-long research project with the latest work, Bannkörbe, now published by Spector Books. Borioli navigates a diverse landscape that blends anthropology, graphic design, and photography to illustrate a past beekeeping technology found in northern Germany. As Rica Cerbarano writes, this investigation into the relationship between humans and bees, delineates a symbiotic relationship that has sustained humankind for centuries – one that might offer critical explanations of our contemporary society.

Catherine Opie

harmony is fraught

Comprising constellations of never-before-exhibited photographs, Catherine Opie’s latest exhibition with Regen Projects raids the artist’s archive and offers windows into her community, city and social life, burrowing into the surface of Los Angeles like the famous cuts on the artist’s back, writes Zachary Korol Gold. Our must-see show during Frieze Los Angeles 2024.

Anselm Kiefer

Photography in the Beginning

Mark Durden visits Anselm Kiefer’s new show at LAM – Lille Métropole Musée d’art modern d’art contemporain et d’art brut, centred on the significance of photography for the German artist’s work. It reminds us that in his hands photographs are never simply a document: predominantly black and white, they are a skin to be marked and scored upon, collaged, contaminated, painted over, covered in clay, scattered with sunflower seeds, scratched, torn; as much a surface as an image.

Taysir Batniji

Disruptions

Disruptions, a new book from Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji published by Loose Joints, collates two years of glitched video calls with his family in Gaza while living in Paris. In solidarity with the struggles of the Palestinian people during the latest act of devastating destruction and erasure by the state of Israel, all proceeds will go towards the NGO Medical Aid Palestine providing critical medical care and support on the ground. Elisa Medde considers this evocation of the emotional and physical separation that occurs across borders.

Photo50 2024

Grafting: The Land and the Artist

In 2024 London Art Fair’s annual Photo50 exhibition was guest curated by Revolv Collective. Titled Grafting: The Land and the Artist, it showcased mainly emerging artists, with the commonalities across the range of presented works circling around ideas of situation, proximity and entanglement with land. The work featured slow and meticulous processes in its making, and, as a result, invited close, detailed and sustained attention, writes Fergus Heron.

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1000 Words is a leading online contemporary photography magazine. It commissions and publishes exhibition and photo book reviews, essays and interviews in response to the visual culture of our present moment. Founded by Tim Clark in 2008, the editorial commitment has always been to explore the possibilities for the medium whilst stimulating debate around current modes of practice, curation, discourses and theory internationally.