“Sebald’s gray snapshots…seem to suggest an especially acute sense of the present relation of word and image. Where they pointed, argues Patt persuasively in her introduction toSearching for Sebald, was precisely toward the practices of certain contemporary artists.”
—Brian Dillon, Aperture, Summer 2008
“Among the most valuable recent studies [of Sebald]…. The impressive Searching for Sebald is a large-format book containing essays illustrated with countless photographs and an unpublished interview…. Searching for Sebald discusses key issues in his work in an unprecedented way: the relationship of Sebald to the virtues of photocopying; photography in the midst of writing, not as the shipwreck of the literary but as an accomplice of its insecurities, calling into question the documentary features of images…”
—translated from Matias Serra Bradford, Perfil, January 2008
“[Searching for Sebald] is beautifully designed, printed, and bound to the highest standards, and reproduces visual material with exemplary clarity that puts the reproductions in other books on Sebald to shame…. The volume opens with Lise Patt’s astonishing 80-page introduction… [which includes] an extremely detailed and valuable comparison of the changes in layout in the various German and English editions of Sebald’s work.”
—Jonathan Long, Source, Spring 2008
“…a tribute to the writer’s engagement with the semiotics of images and his wide scope of influence especially in the visual arts…. a richly generous book for literary scholars, visual artists and all readers of Sebald…”
—Evelyn Juers, Australian Literary Review, May 2008
“…meticulously and beautifully produced…”
—Megan Ratner, Art on Paper, May/June 2008
“I’ve read a great deal of Sebald criticism, but this is the first collection that attempts to analyze Sebald’s aesthetic while reproducing aspects of that aesthetic.
It is simply a gorgeous book…” [more]
—Bev, Excelsior blog, June 2008
“It is an incredible edition of over 600 pages of original criticism and artwork.” [more]
—Attic Fantasist blog, November 2007
Searching for Sebald: Photography After W. G. Sebald is a collection of original essays and visual projects inspired by the work of W. G. Sebald. The interest in Sebald has crossed disciplines, igniting passionate dialogue among and between scholars and practitioners. This unique project, with its intricate weave of image and text, captures this spirited conversation in both theory and praxis. Searching for Sebald is edited by Lise Patt with Christel Dillbohner.
The writings collected in this compilation, edited by Lise Patt with Martin Gantman, use Walter Benjamin’s landmark 1937 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” as a springboard to apply Benjamin’s insights to a diverse selection of topics. Presented in the book’s margins are extensive excerpts from The Manual of Lost Ideas, a collection of images and related documents that arrived at the ICI as an anonymous bequest in 1955.
In 1928, Georges Bataille published his “pornographic” novella Story of the Eye under the pseudonym Lord Auch. Infamous in its own day, this erotic tale has become a pivotal text for art history, comparative literature, and cultural criticism. Bataille’s Eye, edited by Deborah Cullen, presents essays, artworks and research related to Story of the Eye and is the first book to reproduce the original illustrations created by André Masson and Hans Bellmer for the first two editions of the novella. Bataille’s Eye also includes a detailed publishing history that outlines the various appearances of the tale since 1928 along with a lengthy “excavation” project comparing key passages from four known versions of Bataille’s tale, including a now-rare 1953 translation. A unique set of prints commissioned from 13 international artists and printed at Robert Blackburn’s legendary Printmaking Workshop in New York City has been reproduced in this volume under the title 
