Koen Wessing

Koen Wessing's Chili, September 1973 is a shocking account of government brutality, from a socially concerned and politically engaged Dutch photojournalist who has gone on to make similarly powerful images in Ireland, Chile, Guinea-Bissau, Nicaragua, El Salvador, China, Berlin and Amsterdam. First published in 1973, just months after the fall of Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet's coup d'etat, it describes the tense days of the military attempt to root out public opposition in the streets of Santiago, and has since become one of documentary photography's most exemplary moments. This entry in Errata Editions' Books on Books series reproduces every spread from Wessing's gritty documentation of Chile's darkest historical moment; art historian and film theorist Pauline Terreehorst contributes a contemporary essay titled “The Man in the Grey Suit: Koen Wessing: Chili 1973.”

Errata Editions' Books on Books series is an ongoing publishing project dedicated to making rare and out-of-print photography books accessible to students and photobook enthusiasts. These are not reprints or facsimiles but complete studies of the original books. Each volume in the series presents the entire content, page for page, of an original master bookwork which, up until now, has been too rare or expensive for most to experience. Through a mix of classic and contemporary titles, this series spans the breadth of photographic practice as it has appeared on the printed page and allows further study of the creation and meanings of these great works of art. Each volume in the series contains illustrations of every page in the original photobook, a new essay by an established writer on photography, production notes about the creation of the original edition and biographical and bibliographical information about each artist.