Made by MENDO
About the booksWho will recognize a great book better than a bookstore? A bookstore run by graphic designers. Here’s why: at MENDO we get market feedback seven days a week, we are blessed to be surrounded by a bunch of talented, inspiring people – photographers, writers and publishers – and after being a bookstore for more than 15 years, we can easily say we know what book aficionados are looking for. Don’t you agree that initiating, creating and realizing jaw-dropping books now, only comes natural?
A MENDO publication is a well-designed book with visually stunning creative content, browsed by people to be amazed and inspired. The subject-matter is one of our pre-defined curated categories, fashion, photography, interior, sport, lifestyle, food and traveling. In general, a MENDO book is a piece of furniture in itself.
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Portraits
At first glance, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographic portrait of King Henry VIII of England is arresting: his camera has captured the tactility of Henry’s luxurious furs and silks, the elaborate embroidery of his doublet, and the light reflecting off of each shimmering jewel. The contours of the king’s face are so lifelike that he appears to be almost threedimensional. It seems as though the twenty-first century artist has traveled back in time nearly five hundred years to photograph his royal subject.
While Sugimoto’s portraits of historical figures appear to capture a lived moment in time, they are fictions. These portraits are in fact at least twice removed from the subject: his photograph captures a wax figure that has been created by a sculptor from either a photographic portrait or a painted one. The portraits of wax figures, which in this volume are presented alongside a handful of portraits of living subjects and memento mori, call into question what it is the portrait captures.