CHEMICAL LIBRARY
Thomas Mailaender
- Unique photobook
- Handmade by the artist
- Various photographic manipulations :
- Van Dycke
- Cyanotype
- Acrylic transfer
- Xerography
- Liquid light
- Collector edition of 50 unique books
- coming with an authentic certificate signed and stamped
- From 600€ to 2000€
Thomas Mailaender opened an experimental photographic laboratory, in operation for the duration of Paris Photo 2022. With his lab assistants, he manipulates different techniques of photographic printing, dating back to the primitive period in the history of photography - using cyanotype, Van Dyke (formerly called sepia or bistre paper) and photosensitive gelatin - as well as to the modern era, with Xerography and acrylic transfer. In a succession of steps, he reprints images from iconic books in the history of photography onto the pages of other books, mixing different photographers. From this process, unique books are born, where authors, styles and eras are intermingled. This irreverent process gives rise to a library of book-objects, where the chemical print replaces the photomechanical print. Chemistry becomes the vector of a vast remix of images.