Koen Wessing - Chili September 1973 - 1973

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VERY SCARCE OPPORTUNITY to purchase this HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE, VERY SOUGHT-AFTER
PHOTO BOOKLET by Koen Wessing - a perfect example of how touching a thin booklet can be.

MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

Mentioned in all important publications about photobooks:
- Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, volume I, Phaidon Press, Londen 2004, page
22
- Frits Gierstberg and Rik Suermondt, Het Nederlandse fotoboek, Een thematisch selectie, na 1945, NAi
Uitgevers, Rotterdam 2012, page 124-125
- Mattie Boom and Rik Suermondt, Photography between the covers, The Dutch Documentary
photobook after
1945, Fragment uitgeverij, Amsterdam 1989, page 117-119
- Michele and Michel Auer, 802 photo books from the M. + M. Auer Collection, Edition M. + M., page 562.

FRESH, BETTER THAN USUAL CONDITION.

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Koen Wessing's 'Chili September 1973' is a shocking photo-document by a socially concerned and politically engaged Dutch journalist. Published in 1973, only months after the fall of Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet's coup d'etat, it shows the tense days of the military attempt to root out public opposition in the streets of Santiago.

On September 11 1973, with the support of the CIA, General Augusto Pinochet headed a coup d'état, which successfully overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. Wessing, a former assistant of Ed van der Elsken and Ato Kando, took the first plane he could board to Chile and took these photographs in the immediate aftermath.
On his return to the Netherlands, Wessing assembled a book dummy and contacted Geert Lubberhuizen, who had started a publishing house in 1943 as a clandestine operation during the German occupation. De Bezige Bij became the publisher of choice for the most influential authors in the Netherlands, and Lubberhuizen, having noticed the impact of the photographs in the press, immediately set to work publishing the book. Chili September 1973 was issued exactly as Wessing had envisaged, with no introductory text or captions, perhaps only a month after the coup.

'This book begins with a double-page spread of a pile of burning papers. On the top a face can be glimpsed: President Salvador Allende of Chile, overthrown by a military revolt. Allende had been democratically elected, but the United States, in one of the most disreputable episodes in its recent history, deemed his socialist government a Marxist threat to American interests in South America. The CIA actively worked to destabilize the country and supported the military junta of General Augusto Pinochet, who seized power in September 1973. The far-from-bloodless coup leaves today's Chile still trying to come to terms with the damage done to its democratic institutions over three decades ago There are not many images in the book, but each is carefully considered, modest and succinct, spread across a double page in graphic gravure. Despite the difficulties of taking photographs in such a tense and difficult situation, Wessing never forgets the value of composition and lighting control.'
- Gerry Badger -

Softcover. 200 x 250 mm. 48 pages. Pages unnumbered, throughout illustrated in full page black and white photographs. Photos: Koen Wessing. Text in English (on the cover, no text inside).

Condition:
Inside excellent, fresh and flawless; clean with no marks and with no foxing. Outside the delicate covers much better and fresher than usual; lightly but evenly toning, little stain on the front, no defects. Overall fine, better than usual condition.

Fantastic photo document - in fresh condition.
In this great condition extremely hard to find.