Julian Slagman
Looking at My Brother

We see the brothers hug, wrestle, swim, run and explore. They pose for revealing close-ups and unknowingly fill the frame for candid shots. There is the sense of a slow passing of time, as the faces change, and the bodies grow, but this process is not presented in chronological order.– Creative Review

The images are intimate and unflinching – DAZED

Disko Bay is thrilled to present Looking at My Brother, the first monograph by German-Dutch photographer Julian Slagman. In this book, Slagman presents work made over the past ten years, photographing his two younger brothers, Mats and Jonah, growing up navigating adolescence and brotherhood.

From individual portraits to shared moments, the images offer a poignant exploration of childhood, growth, and the passage of time. Intimate compositions reveal moments that are by turns pensive and playful, wild and serene. The work deals with the vulnerability of the body and the brutality of the scars that Mats suffered after his scoliosis surgery. These physical reminders juxtapose with the resilience and strength embodied by both brothers. Through the book, Slagman delves into the vulnerable relationship between photography and time, inviting us to witness the tender moments of connection, and a chronicle of brotherhood. 

Within the last ten years, a child became a teenager, and a teenager became an adult. Skin became a photograph and light somehow evolved into a face. When I press the shutter, the viewfinder blacks out in the moment I am taking the picture. The photographic image cuts itself through time on every level. Its surgery. Like a doctor sealing a wound, with careful stitches. Like me, sealing light onto film. I have been photographing my brothers for the last ten years, watching them grow up and seeing myself growing up with them. Like an arrow that never reaches its target, carefully bending around its moment, like flesh that becomes light and wounds made out of time. – Julian Slagman

Julian Slagman (b.1993, Hamburg) is a German-Dutch photographer currently living and working in Stockholm. He studied photography at Neue Schule für Fotografie in Berlin, HfbK Hamburg and HDK-Valand in Gothenburg under Eva Maria Ocherbauer, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin and Anna Strand & Annika von Hausswolff. He has exhibited series of works in Deichtorhallen Hamburg and Paris Photo and around Europe including Berlin, Frankfurt, Friedrichshafen, Copenhagen and Gothenburg. Looking at My Brother was awarded the Aenne Biermann Prize in 2021 and shortlisted for the Carte Blanche Students Prize sponsored by Paris Photo.

• Embossed printed hardcover
• 17 × 22,7 cm
• 120 pages
• 68 b&w and color images
• Text in English by Linda Baumgartner translated by Jennifer Russell 
• Edition of 750
• ISBN 978-87-973526-9-4  
• Published 10 May 2024   

Press:
Creative Review
DAZED