Bertrand Fleuret: Landmasses and Railways

A photograph of an image of a woman with a triangular slice where her eyes should be, a two-page aerial shot of a forest, a train coming straight at us: Bertrand Fleuret’s artist’s book Landmasses and Railways juxtaposes such enigmatic and striking black-and-white images to create a pleasantly unsettling, difficult-to-decipher narrative. Edited by photographer Jason Fulford, whose own influential publications are helping to define a new generation of photobooks, this exquisitely designed 200-page volume is dreamlike, taking us on a journey through rural and urban landscapes, construction and decay, chaos and clarity. Bertrand Fleuret, currently based in Berlin, was born in Versailles in 1969. His first book, The Risk of an Early Spring, was published by Artimo in 2004 and described thus by photo critic and publisher Darius Himes: From the minute you open the book, you are the eyes and mind of Fleuret, a participant in a tightly edited stream-of-consciousness exercise.