Lars Tunbjörk Office / Kontor Mirelle Thijsen's Choice of Company Photobooks Photography

New York, 1997

Lawyer's office, New York.

New York, 1997

Software company, New York

Office / Kontor.
Photographs by Lars Tunbjork. 
Journal Publishers, Amsterdam, 2002. Unpaged, 79 color illustrations, 11¾x11". 

Tunbjörk points his lens at the ordinary - the office carpet, the corner desk, the pallid birthday cake under florescent lighting, a spaghetti mass of wires, unoccupied chairs, socked feet, waste paper baskets and filing cabinets...the list goes on. This big book of offices includes Japanese, American and Swedish spaces and the people that occupy them. Two large plates are placed on one spread. 

What Lars Tunbjörk's Cross-cultural Office Images Can Tell Us About the Way We Work

Guest column by Michael Shaw

Ever wonder why an American office worker might prefer to sit under his desk, while his Japanese counterpart would do anything to not have to leave his chair? Lars Tunbjörk's "Office" series, an artful photographic documentary of corporate offices in Japan, North America, and Sweden, seems to hold some clues.

With their static subject matter and lackluster color palette, it has been too easy for these images to be pigeonholed as studies of boredom and banality. But given the chance to spend time with them during a recent visit to Cohen Amador Gallery in New York, I’ve come to see these photos as much more than half-whimsical indictments of lifeless automatons trapped in drab cubicles and off-the-rack suits.

On closer inspection, in fact, they provide fleeting insight into the ways disparate cultures relate to restrictive spaces. 

Reflecting on Tunbjörk's, a blog named Feeling Listless observes  that people work "within the limits of the environment that they find themselves in" and will take the opportunity, to the extent it is there, "to ... reconfigure [those spaces] to suit the task at hand."

The press release on the Cohen Amador site makes the point more specifically, noting how: "The marks and signifiers of the human presence ... sometimes blatantly reveal themselves in individuals attempting to accommodate their environment to their needs: a person talking on the phone underneath his desk, a man stretching his shoeless feet, women spreading papers out across the floor."

As a student of non-verbal behavior, I am gratified by this emphasis on the somatic. But I am not satisfied to simply take note of such behavior; I want to know what it says (or, at least suggests) about the people as situated.

One thing that jumps out at me in Tunbjörk's survey is the apparent contrast between how American and Japanese workers relate physically to their officescapes. Just take a look at the photo of the Japanese market trader, so "affiliated" with his terminal, his desk, his chair that he can actually sleep in place.  Or the Tokyo construction firm workers doing exercises at their desks, as if increasing personal pliability simply to more easily mold back  into their working space.

In contrast, look at the shots of American's under or on top of desks, or kneeling in the middle of a hallway in front of a file cabinet.

Based on these images, the Japanese worker seems to adhere to specified navigation, ergonomic formulas, and prescribed usages about as much as the Americans tend to resist and defy them. 

Admittedly, Tunbjörk’s images represent a random and miniscule sample. But if we accept that and peel back the layer of banality, "Office" raises legitimate questions about the cultural dynamics of space.

Lars Tunbjörk's complete "Office" series can be seen at CohenAmador.com.

-- Michael Shaw is a practicing clinical psychologist, but American Photo knows him through his popular, politically charged image-analysis blog,BAGnewsNotes.com. With his adept dissection of newswire photos and his Reading the Pictures feature at the Huffington Post, Shaw has cultivated an outspoken voice and a loyal following within the blogosphere. We are excited to bring his insights to our readers in the form of an online feature as well as a guest post on our State of the Art blog.

(Photo: "Lawyer's office, New York, 1997," © Lars Tunbjörk/Courtesy Cohen Amador Gallery)   

Tokyo, 1996

The alien and the absurd emerge in Lars Tunbjork's photographs of the modern corporate office. 

Tokyo, 1999

Stockbroker, Tokyo.

Sioux Falls, 1998

Bank, Sioux Falls, Iowa.

New York, 1997

Accounting firm, New York.

Tokyo, 1999

Stockbroker, Tokyo.

Stockholm, 1994

Social Insurance Office, Stockholm

Stockholm, 1998

Post office, Stockholm. 

Goteborg, 1997

Car manufacturer, Goteborg, Sweden

Koen Wessing 1942 - 2011 Photographer of Chili September 1973 Photography

San José, Costa Rica Hotel Irazu, 21 Juni 1979


Photographer Koen Wessing died on Wednesday at the age of 69. The Dutch photographer, who worked for the Hollandse Hoogte press agency, was well known for his photographic stories. Wessing received international acclaim for his work in Chile during the aftermath of the military coup of 1973.

Koen Wessing felt a strong connection with the oppressed peoples of the world. He closely followed the revolutions in both Nicaragua and El Salvador in the late 20th century. In 1983, Wessing travelled to China. His photography provided us with a window on a country still very much closed to the rest of the world. He also worked in Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Burundi, Indonesia, Albania and Romania.

Wessing was also acknowledged for his images of the lives of immigrants and religious sects in the Netherlands. He was known as an artist who was dedicated to the people he photographed.

An exhibition of his work on the Chilean coup of 1973 will open in Santiago de Chile on March 7th. He had wanted to ‘return the images to the Chilean people’, but did not live to be present in person. 

Koen Wessing with prints for his exhibition in Santiago from Jeroen de Vries on Vimeo.


Henk Otte - Koen Wessing from dutchdoc on Vimeo.


Koen Wessing a photographer 10 years after a Revolution from Rob Brouwer on Vimeo.

Commenting on the book, Parr & Badger in their reference work, “The Photobook: A History” wrote, "The Dutch photographer Koen Wessing was on the streets of Santiago immediately after the coup happened. His gritty documentary pictures were quickly published in this no frills, extremely elegant photobook … There are not many images in the book, but each is carefully considered, modest and succinct ... despite the difficulties of taking photographs in such a tense and difficult situation. The main thrust of the book is the coup’s immediate aftermath, the shock and grief of the people, the rounding up of Allende’s supporters by the Army, and their herding into the now notorious National Stadium in Santiago, where many would be tortured and killed. Wessing vividly captures one of these executions, in a two-page sequence that forms the book’s climax.”

Errata Editions
Koen Wessing: Chili, September 1973
Books on Books No. 8
Text by Pauline Terreehorst, Jeffrey Ladd.

Koen Wessing's Chili, September 1973 is a shocking account of government brutality, from a socially concerned and politically engaged Dutch photojournalist who has gone on to make similarly powerful images in Ireland, Chile, Guinea-Bissau, Nicaragua, El Salvador, China, Berlin and Amsterdam. First published in 1973, just months after the fall of Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet's coup d'etat, it describes the tense days of the military attempt to root out public opposition in the streets of Santiago, and has since become one of documentary photography's most exemplary moments. This entry in Errata Editions' Books on Books series reproduces every spread from Wessing's gritty documentation of Chile's darkest historical moment; art historian and film theorist Pauline Terreehorst contributes a contemporary essay titled “The Man in the Grey Suit: Koen Wessing: Chili 1973.”

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ESKO MANNIKKO: 100% CASHMERE Mirelle Thijsen's Choice of Company Photobooks Photography

Mannikko, Esko (Photographer) & Simona, Segre (Contributor). ESKO MANNIKKO: 100% CASHMERE. Ballantyne, Scotland: Ballantyne Cashmere, 2003. Hardcover. First Edition/First Printing. 80 pages.  

Collection of color photographs. One of the most beautiful photography books of the new century. The first and only edition. Privately commissioned, the book was not widely distributed or sold. An elegant production by Esko Mannikko and Petri Kuokka: Oversize-volume format in oblong shape. Sturdy brown leatherette pictorial hard boards with photographic reproduction pasted on cover and pale-blue titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Esko Mannikko. Essay by Segre Simona. Printed on thick uncoated stock paper in Finland to the very highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Commissioned by The Ballantyne Cashmere Company as a commemorative photographic record. Presents Esko Mannikko's photographs of the Scottish factory workers of Ballantyne Cashmere in Innerleithen, Scotland. 

"Made In Scotland" cashmere is regarded as the finest cashmere in the world, just as cashmere itself is regarded as one of the most beautiful fabrics ever invented by Man. The words, "sheer" and "pure", come to mind when one speaks of cashmere. Like genuine cotton and silk, the finished product is 100% handmade, every sweater a product of an artisanal tradition and a labor of love. Esko Mannikko's focus are on place and people. 


In "Mexas", he showed how the place was characterized by its Mexican-American inhabitants, and vice versa. He does the same here, with quiet yet dazzling effect: The suite of various workers whose lips perilously hold a needle from which a colorful thread hangs amounts to one of the most moving and brilliant portraiture in contemporary art and photography. Most photography is inherently about travel, comfort, leisure, sensuality, relaxation, and luxury. There are very few great photography books (Bill Owens' "Working" comes to mind) about work. Mannikko is an exemplary anomaly: His work thus far is about work, specifically work that is deeply connected to the land. Even when he is Abroad, his interest there is in the place's roots, craft, and centuries-old traditions. Mannikko's lifelong subject, the decline of rural Finland, is off-putting, even depressing, something people say they do not want in their lives, as if it were ugly or toxic (an accusation that the American writer Annie Proulx had to endure all the way to "Brokeback Mountain"). This is ironic because Mannikko's work breathes whereas most contemporary art and photography are lifeless exercises in Mannerist cleverness. Mannikko is a Classicist, a rarity in our shallow "post-modern" art world. It is important to be reminded that in a world saturated and choking with derivative images from glossy magazines, he is the real, original thing, a great artist: His impeccable compositional sense and formalist use of color as well as his aesthetic rigor and faultless eye are not just "world-class". They set Mannikko apart from other living photographers, and make him an artist in a class of his own. Mainstream recognition of his genius is long overdue. 


Esko Mannikko's "Naarashauki: The Female Pike" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". 

Wout Berger Sanquin The production of Plasma Products Mirelle Thijsen's Choice of Company Photobooks Photography

Sanquin was established in 1998 through a merger between the Dutch blood banks and the Central Laboratory of the Netherlands Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service (CLB). The Foundation is responsible for blood supply on a not-for-profit basis and advances transfusion medicine as such that it fulfils the highest demands for quality, safety and efficiency. Sanquin delivers products and services, conducts scientific investigations and provides education, instruction, in-service training and refresher courses.

On the basis of the Blood Supply Act, Sanquin is the only organisation in the Netherlands authorised to manage our need for blood and blood products. It is also a not-for-profit organisation and thus has no profit motive. Sanquin employs approximately 3,000 workers all across the Netherlands.

The Sanquin organisation is constantly conducting research and developing new and improved blood products. There is also a constant search to replace the roughly 10% of the donors who become unavailable due to age, pregnancy, illness or relocation. At Sanquin, consistent quality and development through improvements therefore go hand in hand. 

Wout Berger (b.1941) in Ridderkerk, The Netherlands, he now resides and works in Utidam. Berger has exhibited extensively across the world in institutions such as; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; International Centre of Photography in New York; Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo and The Photographers’ Gallery in London. He has been in numerous gallery exhibitions in The Hague and his work is held in both public and private collections internationally.

Berger is particularly interested in severely contaminated sites that he photographs as if they were idyllic landscapes. In 2003 he produced a series entitled ‘Ruigoord’ which looked at an area in the Ruigoord village that had been prepared for building work using sand and seeds to hold the sand down. Berger using a technical camera produced close-up shots that have a painterly quality and highlight nature’s beauty but also its constant flux due to human intervention. Wout Berger's work is courtesy Gallery van Kranendonk, The Hague, Netherlands. See also Poisoned Landscape by Wout Berger Online Photobook Photography ...

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No Bare Walls Sanquin 2008 Johannes Schwartz Photography ...