Thematic: Photobook Analysis ''Bunga Bunga''

Book Facts

Title: Bunga Bunga

Photographer: Lorenzo Tricoli

Year: 2014

Number of images: 14 (13 images color, 1 image black and white)

Size: ca. 15 x 25 cm

Price: ca 28 EUR

Content

Subject: The book contains portraits of young women who were involved in the underage prostitution parties from Berlusconi around 2010. The portraits are images from the press either from internet or from printed media.

Photography: The images all seem cropped, only leaving the face of the women. Some of them look seductively, others don't. They are different in style. Some seem to be more snapshots, others classical staged portraits. All images show artefacts that you have on big posters. I assume they are added digitally.

Purpose of publication: I read it as a comment on current political absurdity in Italy

Cover image: One of the portraits of the girls. It's the image that appears in the book on the first page.

Publisher : Self published

Form

Overall design: The book is made of laminated, stiff and glossy pages with spiral binding. The images are on the right side of the book, the left side is black. All images are cut into three pieces to divide the faces: the section on top shows the forehead, the section in the middle shows eyes and nose and the section at the bottom show lips and chin of the women. The viewer can combine these section as liked creating strange new faces. The parts of the faces don't always perfectly line up, sometimes the new face doesn't really work out in sense of proportions. All in all the book gives a bit a cheap impression more of a playing book for kids - it doesn't pretend to be high art.

Sections: On the last page of the book you can find the title and the names of the women depicted.

How does does form relate to content

The way the book is designed it treats the women as interchangeable objects (as probably also Berlusconi sees them) by fragmenting their faces into attributes of seduction. You can also make your own favorite girl by choosing individual components of the face: as long as they are young and beautiful it dosen't really matter who they are. The book doesn't really follow a narration as you can skip through it not in a given order.