Like Lipstick Traces

What do the photos, that writers make of their works, tell us about their authors? In 2004, Aurélien Arbet and Jérémie Egry came up with the idea, to equip selected artists with a Polaroid camera and 100 Polaroids, to get an insight at the before, the after, and the trappings – and thus into the lives of the writers. Apart from the graffiti context, there were no guidelines for the photographs.

In the following two years AROE, Berlin based C.B.S. crew, DUMBO, HONET, KEGR, O’CLOCK, OS CURURUS, RATE, REMIO, ROCKY, SCAN (†), SMASH137 and The E.R.S took 600 photos for the book Like Lipstick Traces. The 13 protagonists were also asked, to write down there thoughts on the topics ‘Nowadays’, ‘Secret Stories’ and ‘Instant Photography’.

The previously unpublished motifs range from family photos (AROE) to the catacombs of Paris (HONET) to DRAMA and EHSO tags in Tokyo and Bucharest. Some writers have recorded the place and date to the respective polaroid, others left their photos uncommented.

The photos are as diverse as the work of the writers. But the publishers have been able to create a coherent overall picture by limiting to the Polaroid format. The hardcover photo book was published in 2009 and brings together some of the most interesting writers of the 2000s to an unprecedented, personal and intimate insight into their lives.

226 pages, 22,5 x 26,5 cm, Hardcover
Release Date: June 2009
Publisher: Dokument Press