MACK

Charting an expansive visual history of queer nightlife through the lens of photographers, filmmakers, and artists, Amelia Abraham's 'Sex, Clubs, Dissent' explores how image-making has fostered, and sometimes jeapardised, the formation of queer practices, subcultures, and forms of resistance. Rather than a comprehensive catalogue or chronology of queer nightlife, this book is a love letter to those who went out and stayed out.⁠ ⁠ Available now via link in bio 🔗 Edited by @amelia_abraham With work by @flashnine9 , @rey999rivera , @dellagracevolcano , @wolfgang_tillmans , @roxy_lee , @lyleashtonharris , @elegancebratton , @phyllischristopher , @brucelabruce , @chloedsherman , @amosmac and many more💥⁠ ⁠ With essays by @brontezpurnell , @mckenziewark3000 , @rene.matic ⁠ and @ajamux , @jack_parlett , @just_tav , @adam.zmith , @sita_akb and @sunilgupta7402 , @r.e.l.goldberg , @sweatmother , @asaseresin , and @ellerustle and @tourmaliiine ⁠⁠

'Last week when I was printing in the darkroom […] I remembered something that Larry Sultan wrote at the beginning of his book: “It is truly mysterious, and no matter how many pictures I make, I never depleted that quality of mystery.” It feels very special to feel close to what Larry Sultan is holding onto in these words.’ ⁠ ⁠ @jamie.hawkesworth ⁠ ⁠on 'Water Over Thunder' by Larry Sultan ❤️‍🔥⁠ ⁠ 'Water Over Thunder' is available now via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 @larry_sultan , 'Pictures from Home'

Listen to @amelia_abraham read her essay 'Paradise Lost: The Life and Death of Sexual Subcultures' from her new visual history of queer nightlife 'Sex, Clubs, Dissent' ❤️‍🔥⁠ ⁠ In this episode of MACK's podcast Thought Pieces, Abraham charts an underground history of sexual subculture from London's Spunk & Chain Reaction parties in 1980s Vauxhall to the San Francisco SoMa leather scene photographed by the likes of Catherine Opie and Phyllis Christopher, to the Mapplethorpe censorship⁠ trials of 1990.⁠ ⁠ Listen to the full episode via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 Image Credits: ⁠ [1] Kary Kwok, Alternative Miss World, London, 1995⁠ @karyphoto [2] Roxy Lee, Miss Touche, 2020 @roxy_lee

'Hujar:Contact' publishes next week ✨️⁠ ⁠ Hujar’s empathetic eye focused in on varying subjects – crowds of protest, damaged relics, farm animals – but above all he was preoccupied with making portraits of the overlapping circles of artists, writers, and underground luminaries he moved within in New York. ⁠ ⁠ Edited by Joel Smith, this volume provides captivating insight into a master at work, forming an immersive chronicle of Hujar’s poignant efforts to connect, through photography, with the creative communities that defined his life, outlook, and art.⁠ ⁠ Read more about this new book of Hujar's contact sheets via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ Co-published with @themorganlibrary on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Hujar:Contact’, on show from 22 May–25 October 2026 📌⁠ ⁠ 📸 Peter Hujar @peterhujararchive

This new book of photographs by artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen documents Grenada’s plant life, continuing his exploration of colonial history and its legacies.⁠ ⁠ Rendered in vivid colour, the images reflect the complex interlocking of history and survival contained in the island's flora. Taking as his touchpoint the poet Derek Walcott’s elegy to his mother, ‘The Bounty’, McQueen’s project adopts a similarly poetic sensibility, attuned to the resilience of the island’s landscape and the dualities of the word ‘bounty’, alluding to both the abundance of nature and the sum paid to slave catchers.⁠ ⁠ Signed copies available at @hatchardspiccadilly or unsigned copies are available via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ Poems by Derek Walcott and Dionne Brand. Designed by Irma Boom.⁠ ⁠ 📸 Steve McQueen

This image shows S A Docrat having just locked up his shop in Fietas, Johannesburg for the last time, 1977 🗝️⁠ ⁠ Taken from 'Fragments of Fietas' by David Goldblatt, this book provides a vital and moving document of community resilience and ethnic cleansing in apartheid South Africa.⁠ ⁠ Read more about the book via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 David Goldblatt

"When I met Kirsten, I was excited. She was sixteen—actually sixteen. Growing up, it always bugged me in movies that teenagers looked like they were in their thirties. There’s such a big difference between a sixteen-year-old and a twenty-year-old. In Kirsten I saw the real essence of the character and the film I wanted to make." ⁠ — @sofiacoppola in 'Archive' ❤️‍🔥⁠ ⁠ Order 'Archive' by Sofia Coppola via link in bio 🔗 ⁠ ⁠ 📸 Sofia Coppola

Keisha Scarville's 'Passports' is out in June 💥⁠ ⁠ Ahead of the book's official release, Keisha will be signing some exclusive advance copies @icp Photobook Fest on Sunday 10 May at 3pm. Come and find us at the MACK stand⁠ or pre-order via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 Keisha Scarville @scarvillek

'Coming and Going' is Jim Goldberg’s unique work of autobiography. Since 1999, Goldberg has been photographing his daily life through all its vicissitudes and returning to his studio to re-imagine and investigate these images through a practice of collage, annotation, montage, and reconstruction for which he has become renowned.⁠ ⁠ Jim will be signing some of the last remaining copies of this landmark book at LA Art Book Fair on Saturday 9 May at 5pm. Join us for this special signing at the MACK booth, A21 📌⁠ ⁠ The book is sold out in the US but some copies remain in the UK and EU via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 @goldbergjim ⁠ ⁠ @printedmatter_artbookfairs

To finish our deep dive into books that explore and remake archives, we're spotlighting 'Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife' by Amelia Abraham 💥⁠ ⁠ The book asks what our decades-long quest to catalogue and understand nightlife spaces through photography and film can tell us about our various relationships with them. As Abraham writes in the foreword:⁠ ⁠ "Where sites for queer intimacy and communion have not existed – or existed with no trace – photographers, artists, and filmmakers have dreamed them into being or filled in the gaps. In those places where queer nightlife has flourished, even if temporarily, it has been photographed for posterity, for pleasure, and often as a kind of questioning."⁠ ⁠ Read more about 'Sex, Clubs, Dissent' via link in bio 🔗⁠⁠ ⁠ 📸 Image Credits: ⁠ [1] Efrain Gonzalez, On the West Side Highway, 1982⁠ [2] Efrain Gonzalez, Drag Kings including Dred at Cake, East Village, New York City, 1996⁠ @bousanbear [3] Stuart Linden Rhodes, The original Funny Girls bar in Blackpool, 1995⁠ @linden_archives [4] Bernice Mulenga, Priince & Majeesty, 2021⁠ @bernice.mulenga [5] Spyros Rennt, Menergy backs (red light), 2018 @spyressence

Presenting an enigmatic catalogue of documentary images from a declassified US army archive, 'Fashion Army' charts a visual history of military apparel and its impact on contemporary style.⁠ ⁠ Edited by @matthieu_nicol , the book also includes an essay by renowned fashion critic Angelo Flaccavento (@poeticallypunk ), reflecting on the interplay between military functionality and the fashion industry.⁠ ⁠ 'Fashion Army' is available now via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 US Army Natick Labs Archive

Continuing our exploration into books that disrupt, subvert and create new archives, we're looking back at 'Archive' by the Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen 🤍⁠ ⁠ Over five decades, Van Manen created intimate and poignant photographs of commonplace scenes, produced during extended trips to Europe, America, China and the former Soviet Union. Edited and designed by renowned Dutch designer Hans Gremmen, this book is the ultimate reference on Van Manen's work.⁠ ⁠ Available now via link in bio 🔗⁠ ⁠ 📸 Bertien van Manen⁠ [1] Appalachian Mountains, 1985-2013⁠ [2] Amsterdam, 1985⁠ [3] Romania, 1990