Conceptual Photo Books: Photo-Imago as a Trace of the Geist Miško Šuvaković, Dubravka Đurić

In the essay, we will deal with the models of the photo book of artists in conceptual art 1966–80. A short sketch of the international history of photo books in conceptual art will be presented, ranging from the examples of American, British, Croatian, and Serbian authors, etc. We will point out to the two levels of discussion: (1) the essential morphological properties of the book, artistic books and photo book in conceptual art – the transformation of static photographic image into a series of sequences and a series of sequences into mental representation; and (2) typology of characteristic models of photo books in conceptual art (book-project, artist's book as a first-person speech, tautological articulation of a series of photographs, analytical reflection between image and text, documentary book etc.). We will also discuss photo books in conceptual art in relation to models: phototautology, photodocuments, photoperformance, photoselfreflectivity, photoarchive, photo-remediation, photosemiology, photoshifter, photoconceptual text, phototravellers, photo-construction-of-the-every-day-life, phototranscultural narration, photoexistence, photopolitization and photo-simulation. Article received: April 23, 2022; Article accepted: June 21, 2022; Published online: September 15, 2022; Original scholarly paper