Hommage à Moï Ver, The Ghetto Lane in Wilna (Schaubücher 27)

Hommage à Moi Ver is what Lesley Martin calls a “double pleasure,” that of a facsimile reprint of a modernist photobook classic, and that of an accompanying second volume in the same box that offers a curatorial approach and rich historical context to said publication. “An excellent way to present the book as it was originally published, complete with new studies and commentary,” concludes Martin. Moi Ver is best known for his canonical work, rustling with the dizzying energy of the eponymous city, Paris (1931).

That same year, the Lithuanian-born photographer, whose real name is Moses Vorobeichic, published Ein Ghetto im Osten-Wilna [A Ghetto in East Vilnius]. Two subjects that might surprise the contemporary reader as they seem so different: a city, the heart of modernist art and literature at the beginning of the 20th century, versus the sometimes sleepy, sometimes lively Jewish quarter of Vilnius in Lithuania (a city that would be tragically destroyed by Nazi forces). But both were vibrant European capitals at the time, and in both books Moi Ver used the same avant-garde approach to image making through collage, double exposure, cropping and placement on the page, with the same personal, constructivist verve.