

src setantabooks on IG and Ader



images that haunt us
















Heinz von Perckhammer was born in Merano, Austria-Hungary (now Italy) in 1895. During the First World War he served aboard the SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth during the Siege of Tsingtao and between 1917 and 1919 was held as a prisoner of war. It was during this time when he was held captive that his interest in photography began. He apparently remained in China for much of the 1920s, and took these soft-focused and stylized photographs of women from Macao brothels.
In the introduction to Edle Nacktheit in China he writes: ‘Pictures of nude women, setting aside the ugly caricatures of the “Spring pictures” of erotic scenes, simply do not exist in China. Therefore I believe, I have created something entirely new and of value.’ Edle Nacktheit in China was later banned by the Nazis as Degenerate art (Entartete Kunst) and appeared on the Liste des schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums [List of harmful and undesirable writing].








In 1977, Fukase turned his lenses on his new companion Sasuke. Growing up with felines, he decides with the arrival of this new cat in his life that it would become a photographic subject in his own right, fascinated by this creature full of life named after a legendary ninja. Sasuke disappears after ten days and the photographer sticks hundreds of small posters in his neighborhood.
A person brings back his cat, yet it is not Sasuke but never mind he welcomes this new cat with as much affection. One year later, he takes a second cat named Momoe, entering the frame as well and he will never get tired of photographing their games. They become for the Japanese photographer a boundless experimental field leading to an extraordinary body of work in its technical and visual inventiveness.
As often in his work, this series shows a form of projection of the photographer into his subject. The cat, a faithful companion who never leaves him, takes the place of his wife, eternal heartache, later represented by the iconic fleeing crows.
A new book, Sasuke, is dedicated to Masahisa Fukase’s emblematic series on his two cats: Sasuke and Momoe, combining unpublished and iconic images. | Juxtapoz magazine




This publication is dedicated to Masahisa Fukase’s emblematic series on his two cats: Sasuke and Momoe, combining unpublished and iconic images. In 1977, Fukase turned his lenses on his new companion Sasuke. Growing up with felines, he decides with the arrival of this new cat in his life that it would become a photographic subject in his own right, fascinated by this creature full of life named after a legendary ninja. Sasuke disappears after ten days and the photographer sticks hundreds of small posters (as featured on the cover of the book) in his neighborhood. A person brings back his cat, yet it is not Sasuke but never mind he welcomes this new cat with as much affection. One year later, he takes a second cat named Momoe, entering the frame as well and he will never get tired of photographing their games. They become for the Japanese photographer a boundless experimental field leading to an extraordinary body of work in its technical and visual inventiveness.
As often in his work, this series shows a form of projection of the photographer into his subject. The cat, a faithful companion who never leaves him, takes the place of his wife, eternal heartache, later represented by the iconic fleeing crows.
His cats have been the subject of several books in his lifetime and Tomo Kosuga has dug into the photographer’s archives to conceive this ultimate book as the achievement of a series of publications devoted to his cats. / text: Atelier EXB


“It’s only once in a blue moon that days like these can happen but, when they do, they add a new dimension to the years that follow.” – Opening text of In a blue moon by Nell Dorr.

In a Blue Moon, a small hardcover made up of many of the same images from Mangroves (*) but printed in photogravure. Lettering by George A. DuBerg.
(*) Mangroves, a softbound portfolio of her photographs was self-published in a limited edition, under her first married name, Nell Koons. It comprises two of her poems and fifteen tipped-in halftones of flowers and nude girls and women, often perched in trees.









In a blue moon combines dream-like images of nude women with close-up and abstracted images of flowers. The narrative of this photo-novella is the transition into adulthood. The effect of this book is that something that has so much potential to be lame – pictures of girls, pictures of flowers, girls and flowers and girls with flowers in their hair – actually comes across as being quite profound and unashamedly beautiful. Nell Dorr photographed with a Rollei camera only ever using available natural light. The simplicity of her approach did not necessarily mean simplicity in the results that she achieved. Her imagery is filled with amazing abstract constructions and her portraits have an almost primal quality. Her photographs are the autobiographical work of a strong and sensitive woman who created an internal place where beauty and truth could still flourish. [quoted from an article by Matthew Carson (Head Librarian & Archivist at the International Center of Photography) on Monsters & Madonnas]










content sources:
ICP · International Center of Photography
Monsters & Madonnas (ICP blog)





Heinz von Perckhammer was born in Merano, Austria-Hungary (now Italy) in 1895. During the First World War he served aboard the SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth during the Siege of Tsingtao and between 1917 and 1919 was held as a prisoner of war. It was during this time when he was held captive that his interest in photography began. He apparently remained in China for much of the 1920s, and took these soft-focused and stylized photographs of women from Macao brothels.
In the introduction to Edle Nacktheit in China he writes: ‘Pictures of nude women, setting aside the ugly caricatures of the “Spring pictures” of erotic scenes, simply do not exist in China. Therefore I believe, I have created something entirely new and of value.’ Edle Nacktheit in China was later banned by the Nazis as degenerate art (Entartete Kunst) and appeared on the Liste des schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums [List of harmful and undesirable writing].









