17 December 2024: 10×10 hosted a salon at Highter Pictures featuring Melissa Harris and Krissy Shook.
Melissa Harris is editor-at-large of Aperture and served as editor-in-chief of Aperture magazine, 2000–2012. Harris curates exhibitions worldwide, including Mary Ellen Mark: Encounters with C/O Berlin (& Steidl Verlag, 2023). She is the author of two visual biographies: A Wild Life on Michael “Nick” Nichols (Aperture, 2017), and Josef Koudelka: Next (Aperture, 2023).
Melissa will discuss her two most recent publishing/curatorials projects: Josef Koudelka: Next and Mary Ellen Marks: Encounters. The only authorized biography of Josef Koudelka, Melissa spent almost ten years and hundreds of hours interviewing Koudelka about his more than 60-year-long career for her definitive volume on one of the Magnum Photos’ seminal photographers. A touring exhibition and associated publication, Mary Ellen Mark: Encounters is a comprehensive survey of Mark’s documentary and portrait practice from the 1960s until the end of her life in 2015. Mark’s immense empathy and humanist ideals imbue both her personal and assigned photography of marginalized peoples.
Born in Manhattan, Kristina Shook is a full-scholarship graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and holds a Master’s degree from the American Film Institute. She is a writer, performance artist, and visual artist.
Kristina was photographed from ages 1 to 18 by her late mother, renowned photographer Melissa Shook. She joins the 10×10 Photobooks Salon to discuss Krissy: Photographs and Writings by Melissa Shook (c. 1979), an unpublished book maquette on Kristina’s early life and Daily Self-Portraits 1972-1973 (TBW, 2023) her mother’s first photography book, published by TBW Books. The book, twice shortlisted this year at the Arles Book Fair and Paris Photo-Aperture PhotoBook Awards 2024, features Melissa’s daily self-portraits taken in their Lower East Side apartment. The discussion will delve into the intimate moments captured in the series and Kristina’s memories of being part of this deeply personal project. Krissy will also share Krissy: Photographs and Writings by Melissa Shook.
Video recording of salon #76 on 10×10 Photobooks’ YouTube channel (forthcoming).
A big thank you to Kim Bouros and Janice Guy at Higher Pictures for hosting and facilitating this salon. Thank you to Shea Baasch for photos and Jeff Gutterman for video recording.
Salon photo by Jeff Gutterman.