MARK BORTHWICK — Social Documentaries Amid this Piste, Self-published, c. 2002

Artist photobook. 21.0 × 27.2 cm. 240 pages. Printed wraps. Black-and-white xerox / photocopy printing throughout. Self-published by Mark Borthwick, c. 2002.

Originally related to the scarce 250-copy edition, this self-published photocopy version was reportedly produced by the artist in a very small, undocumented number after the original edition had become hard to find. The book gathers Borthwick’s photographs, text fragments, DIY shoots and personal references into a loose visual diary: fashion plates shot against plain walls and in outdoor light, handwritten and typed texts, landscape photographs, maps, close-up studies of hands and objects, and sequences of figures in motion or at rest. The photocopied surface is not simply a cheaper reproduction — it changes the register of the work, making the images flatter, grainier and more unified, absorbing fashion, personal photography and writing into the same grey field.

The interior moves between registers without announcement: a woman standing against a wall in a striped dress faces a woman from behind in a plain black shift; a seated figure cross-legged on the floor faces a standing figure seen from behind, hair loose, holding something at her back; a typed poem headed In order of things faces a grayscale landscape of a lone young tree in an open field; a numbered list headed Plus faces a close-up of two hands holding a thin wire or thread between them, a small ring suspended from it; a page headed New York / F train carries thirteen numbered observations about strangers on the subway, facing a small reproduction of a map labelled Berlin / Teilgebiet B.

Borthwick’s work sits between fashion, music, artist book culture and private image-making. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, his collaborations with Maison Martin Margiela and his quiet, anti-commercial photographic language helped define a more intimate and improvised visual culture around fashion publishing.

Condition: good used condition. Age toning to pages and covers, light handling wear, natural softness to the printed wraps. Xerox production gives the book an intentionally grey, degraded, atmospheric surface.