One Love, One Book

How does a bookbinder miraculously transform printed sheets into the proud volumes on your bookshelf? Koto Bolofo reveals all this and more in One Love, One Book, his photo-documentation of the worlds of papermaking, printing and bookbinding.

Bolofo began his visual journey at Hahnemühle Paper Mill, founded in 1584 and today one of the world’s oldest, capturing the combination of artisanal know-how and advanced technology on which Hahnemühle’s quality is based. His next stop was Göttingen, where he shows an insider’s view of how Steidl books are made and their dedication to creating multiples: books as democratic art objects at affordable prices. Bolofo finally traveled to Leipzig to photograph the secrets of bookbinding. Complementing the patient, hushed quality of his pictures are playful texts by Bolofo himself in which his childlike delight at the wonders of bookmaking cannot be repressed.

It was early in the summer of 2012 that the Wonderful Wizard of Steidlville invited me and my whimsical eye to visit the kingdom of his publishing house at Düstere Strasse 4, to see if I could explore and document the complexity of the labyrinth and really discover How to Make a Book with Steidl. - Koto Bolofo