Coming up for Air: Stephen Gill – A Retrospective

Coming up for Air is the fullest account so far of Stephen Gill's photography, drawing together four decades of work, from 1982 to 2021, into a single retrospective.

The 604-page clothbound hardback holds over 600 images — roughly 450 in colour and 150 in black and white — sequenced by Gill across his best-known series (The Pillar, Talking to Ants, Hackney Flowers) as well as lesser-seen projects such as Invisible, Russian Women Smokers and Audio Portraits, plus early photographs from his Bristol childhood. Designed by Greger Ulf Nilson, the book is bound in cloth with foil embossing and a tipped-in cover image, and was published by Gill's own Nobody Books alongside a retrospective exhibition at Arnolfini, Bristol.

Gill (born 1971, Bristol) has spent his career working against the grain of straightforward documentary photography, burying negatives, layering exposures and letting chance intervene in the printing process. Long based between Bristol and Sweden, he has published most of his work himself through Nobody, and this volume gathers that output into one place for the first time.