The Photobook as Variant : Exhibiting, Projecting, and Publishing John Max's Open Passport

"In 1973, a Toronto magazine published the photographic book Open Passport by Montréal photographer John Max. A formally innovative narrative sequence about the dissolution of an artist’s marriage, it has been a touchstone of Canadian photography since its publication. Simultaneously autobiographical, fictional, and experimental, Open Passport is a unique response to the representations of self and subjectivity in American photography of the 1970s, which championed the idea of photographers as authors and the book as privileged support for their images. Initially produced as an exhibition accompanied by a slideshow, Open Passport is a work that uses multiple supports for disseminating a photographic narration about the self." -- Publisher's website