Hervé Guibert: The Only Face

by Herve Guibert

ISBN: 9781738901357

Published: 2025-04-15

A new edition of one of only two photobooks that Guibert published in his life, reissued here for the first time This photobook by Hervé Guibert, The Only Face, is not a novel in the traditional sense but is nonetheless filled with characters, settings and mystery. It starts with bodies--their faces either eclipsed or out of frame--before unleashing a bravura sequence of portraits: friends, lovers, family and Guibert himself. As the book approaches its finale, his subjects are obscured and then disappear completely, leaving behind the objects they touched, until even those vanish, leaving only light. Most of the photographs in The Only Facewere taken on Guibert's European and American travels, but their settings are, with few exceptions, small private interiors. The effect is an inwardness that communicates Guibert's deep affinity with his subjects. The Only Face, originally published in Paris in 1984, is the second and final photobook Guibert published in his lifetime (preceded by...