Celebrating the evolving narrative of the photobook, Paris Photo and Aperture, in partnership with DELPIRE & CO, are excited to announce the 35 selected titles for this year's shortlist.
The Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards welcome a new partner in DELPIRE & CO, who has joined forces with Paris Photo and Aperture to ensure the continuity of the awards in this most unusual of years. While the international photography community will not be able to gather in celebration at the Grand Palais this year, Paris Photo and Aperture are delighted to confirm that the prize continues. The exhibition of the shortlisted books will be hosted in Paris by DELPIRE & CO from November 5-28. The final jury will take place as planned, and the winner will be announced on Friday, November 13-including the announcement of the recipient of the $10,000 cash prize in the First PhotoBook category. The shortlisted books for 2020 will also be featured in Issue 018 of The PhotoBook Review, co-published with DELPIRE & CO. Additional selections from this special issue of The PhotoBook Review, guest edited by Dr. Deborah Willis, will be presented alongside the exhibition of shortlisted books in Paris.
The 2020 shortlist jury took place over the course of three days at Mana Contemporary in New Jersey, and involved the review of more than seven hundred submissions. Our thanks to the shortlist jurors, including Joshua Chuang (New York Public Library), Lesley A. Martin (Aperture Foundation), Sarah Hermanson Meister (MoMA), Susan Meiselas (photographer, Magnum Foundation), and Oluremi C. Onabanjo (independent curator and historian).
"Despite the fact that the usual rhythms of book perusal and discovery have been disrupted, it's clear that the photobook community has continued to find ways to connect, and more importantly, to keep creating," states the jury chair, Lesley Martin. Juror Oluremi Onabanjo asserts, "In 2020, the book and catalogue in contemporary photographic practice continues to evolve and unfurl in many different directions, while offering more audiences the opportunity to get involved and fall in love with books."
The Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards were founded in 2012 to celebrate the photobook's contributions to the evolving narrative of photography and comprise three major categories: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalogue of the Year.
