Jakob Tuggener’s Fabrik, published in Erlenbach–Zurich in 1943, is considered to be a milestone in the history of photography books. The series of seventy-two photographs in this Photo Epos of Technology is oriented toward the expressionist aesthetic of the silent movie. It imparts a sceptical view of the destructive potential of unbridled tech nological progress – at the time the Swiss military industry was producing weapons for World War II. Tuggener’s uncompromising subjective photography and his critical attitude did not suit his time. Fabrik was not a commercial success – the copies were sold at a loss and in part apparently even converted to pulp. Now the work, which has since become a sought-after classic, is being reissued as a reprint with a contemporary afterword. Jakob Tuggener (1904–1988) was a photographer, film maker and painter. In the major themes of his photographic work – labour in a factory, simple rural life and magnificent parties of high society – Tuggener composed print-ready book maquettes, but for Fabrik alone he found a publisher. Tuggener was presented by Otto Steinert (exhibition: “subjektive fotografie”, 1951/53) and – arranged by Robert Frank – by Edward Steichen (exhibitions: “Post-War European Photography” and “Family of Man”, 1953/55). The Helmhaus in Zurich devoted a retrospective to him in 1974. Tuggener left an immense and practically untouched life’s work: more than sixty book maquettes, thousands of exhibition photographs and work prints, hundreds of colour slides, drawings, watercolors, oil paintings and more than twenty silent films.weiterlesen