“Le bateau ivre” is structured into five parts like a play, Martin Essl takes us by the hand (or should I say eye!) through Paris and shows us that change for the better or the worse is at hand, whether it is mass civil unrest or the changing of the light on a temporary blue wall. I first saw the “blue wall photographs” taken on Avenue Matignon, Paris 8ème, in 2019 at Paris Photo @esther.woerdehoff gallery was showing them, I was rather taken by the sequence of photographs, which reminded me in parts of the Johan van der Keuken sequence “42nd Street, New York, 1997.” Martins work feels individual and poetic, the book is sequenced and printed beautifully on different stocks of paper, and arrives in its own slip case. The work feels contemporary and unforced. Published by #kehrerverlag I really recommend it. “Le bateau ivre (The Drunken Boat), was photographed in Paris between 2019 and 2023, and refers a poem of the same name by Arthur Rimbaud. Written in 1871 by a 17-year-old Rimbaud, his poem-passport for Paris, in which he uses the image of a boat to represent a man’s journey through life. In a poetic photographic essay structured like a play in five acts in which the images oscillate between realism and abstraction, #MartinEssl redraws the outline of a city in transformation and composes an abstract and contemporary map of Paris.” Checkout Martins insta for book signings including one this week @librairieartazart Book launch this week at Artazart in Paris. Thursday 19 September 2024, from 6 pm ARTAZART 83, quai de valmy Au bord du canal Saint Martin Paris 10ème @kehrerverlag @martin.essl #photobookjousting