Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin

A first edition, altered artists' book, signed by both artists on the front free endpaper.

• Adam Broomberg (South African).
• Oliver Chanarin (English).
• London: Mack, 2011.
• Quarto.
• Includes 85 black-and-white photographs printed in offset, each with a new photographic reproduction partially pasted over it by hand, the final image with a screen printed red square.
• With new notes screen printed in red over the original text section.
• Number 68 of 100 copies.
• Bound in grey cloth-covered boards, original titles stamped on spine in silver, new titles screen printed in red on upper side.

German poet and dramatist Bertolt Brecht's Kriegsfibel War Primer was first published in 1955. Brecht's mistrust of the press imagery emerging from the Second World War led him to compose four-line poems, which he juxtaposed with photographs sourced from newspapers and magazines, many of which were from LIFE magazine as Brecht was living in the United States in exile from Nazi Germany. Broomberg & Chanarin, concerned with the proliferation of imagery relating to the "War on Terror" that began with 9/11, have taken copies of the 1998 first English edition of Brecht's War Primer as the starting point for this revised version. Keeping the original captions intact, they have partially overlaid the original photographs selected by Brecht with contemporary imagery from both sides of the recent conflict drawn from online sources. The URL for each image is provided with a caption in a new set of notes, screen-printed over the originals. Broomberg & Chanarin were awarded the 2013 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for this work.