Jason Eskenazi

Jason Eskenazi (born April 23, 1960) is an American photographer, based in Brooklyn, New York. The majority of his photography is from the countries of the former Soviet Union, including his book Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith.

Eskenazi received the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize Wonderland won first place in a book award from Pictures of the Year International in 2008.

Biography Eskenazi was born April 23, 1960, in Queens, New York. His first trips were to Romania (for its first democratic election) and to Germany, then Russia in 1991 just before the August coup that marked the end of the Soviet Union.

In 2004 and 2005 Eskenazi directed a Kids with Cameras project in Jerusalem, teaching photography to Arab Muslims and Jewish children. Their photographs were exhibited in New York, San Francisco, resulting in the book Title Nation.

For economic reasons as well as to obtain health insurance, Eskenazi worked from 2008 to 2009 as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. William Meyers, writing in The Wall Street Journal, favorably reviewed The Americans List, as did photographer David Carol.

Eskenazi is one of the founding editors of Sw!pe magazine, created by guards at the Metropolitan who are artists in their free time. Eskenazi co-founded Red Hook Editions, a publishing cooperative of photographers. He is co-creator of a large-format zine titled Dog Food, blending parody and photography and also published online.

The trilogy

Eskenazi's preferred way of disseminating his work is the photobook. His most important work is a trilogy of photobooks spanning 30 years. Although their page size varies, they share a common design with bare boards and an open spine. Each consists of three numbered sections; the numbering of these sections, and of the plates, is consecutive across the trilogy. In each book, the photography style appears documentary black and white, but the photos are recontextualized in an imagined conceptual and visual narrative.

For the first of these books, Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith, Eskenazi undertook an extensive project in Russia and the former Soviet Union between 1991 and 2001. Eugene Richards commented: "Most photographers today either do art photography or create blunt, in-your-face messages. . . . The place he went to could be seen in a million ways, but Eskenazi always seems to capture the little non-moments, the lonely souls." It appeared, eight years later, as the second volume (largest in format) of a trilogy.

The framework for The Black Garden is Greek mythology, and the book was photographed within "the vast geographical and mythical world known to ancient Greece", New York: Red Hook, 2009. . Edition of 2000 copies. 17.8×12.7 cm. Sections 1 to 3; plates 1 to 77. New York: Red Hook, 2020. . Larger format (21×14.5 cm). Title Nation (with Valeri Nistratov). Amsterdam: Schilt, 2010. . With a DVD containing Title Nation, Vitebsky and Camera Obscura. Black Garden. New York: Red Hook, 2019. . Sections 4 to 6; plates 78 to 231. Departure Lounge. New York: Red Hook, 2019. . Sections 7 to 9; plates 232 to 314.

Publications edited by Eskenazi Beyond the Wall. Self-published using Blurb.com, 2010. By the Glow of the Juke Box: The Americans List. New York: Red Hook, 2012. . Müzik Kutusunun Parıltısı Eşliğinde: The Americans Listesi. Istanbul: Espas Kuram Sanat Yayınları [Espas art & theory publications], 2012. . Turkish-language edition. By the Glow of the Juke Box: The Americans List II. Expanded edition. New York: Red Hook, 2016. . With contributions by Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Jeffrey Ladd, Robert Frank, Martin Parr, Philip Perkis, David Alan Harvey, Bill Burke, Josef Koudelka, John Gossage, Juliana Beasley, Sara Terry, Mark Steinmetz, Vanessa Winship, Alec Soth, Peter van Agtmael, Glenna Gordon, Alan Chin, and others. Dog Food, Issue 1. New York: Red Hook, 2012. Dog Food, Issue 2. New York: Red Hook, 2013. Dog Food, Issue 3. New York: Red Hook, 2014.

Publications with contributions by Eskenazi Contatti. Provini d'Autore = Choosing the best photo by using the contact sheet. Vol. II. Edited by Giammaria De Gasperis. Rome: Postcart, 2013. . 100 Great Street Photographs. Munich, London, New York: Prestel, 2017. By David Gibson. . Contains a commentary on and a photograph by Eskenazi.

Awards and grants Alicia Patterson Foundation Grant, 1996. Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize, 1999, for his story The Red Village, photographs of Jewish people in the village of Krasnayasloboda in Azerbaijan. Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1999. Milton and Sally Michel Avery Residency, Yaddo, New York, 2007. Best Photography Book, Pictures of the Year International, 2008, for Wonderland. 2007: Wonderland, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, North Gate Hall, University of California. 2008–2009: Wonderland, Leica Gallery, New York. 2011: Vanishing Points, Reilly Gallery, Providence College, Rhode Island, USA. Photographs of people at the World Trade Center site in New York City, taken with a Zenit Horizon panoramic camera.

Exhibitions with others 1999: Caucasus and Haiti: The Boys of Summer, Moving Walls 2, Open Society Institute, New York. 2012: Double Zero, Look3, Charlottesville Festival of the Photograph, USA. 2013: Double Zero, Develop Photo line-up, On Photography Online Film Festival, Fotoweek, the Netherlands. 2013: A Gathering of Images, Leica Gallery, New York. With numerous other photographers. 2014: Double Zero, Istituto Superiore Antincendi (ISA), FotoLeggendo festival, Rome.

Exhibitions curated by Eskenazi 2011: Bursa Photography Festival, Bursa, Turkey. 2013: Come Again! Seen-Unseen, Gallery BU, Istanbul, Turkey.

Collections Eskenazi's work is held in the following collections: Baku, Azerbaijan, 1992, Brooklyn Museum, New York. Leica Gallery, New York.