Books

Some words about this book by Dazed: “One night in Paris, I asked a transgender sex-worker how she would describe herself. ‘As the Ultimate Angel’ she replied, and she was right” Photographer Byron Newman is describing the conception of his photo book, The Ultimate Angels. Questioning what it is to be male or female, the book – which is a documentation of transgender communities in Paris 1980s – approached gender politics headon before the word “transgender” carried the same ubiquity it does today”; and by FMS MAGAZINE “(…) a window into the dark underbelly of 1980’s Paris, as well as a vibrant celebration of human sexuality, identity, and personal consciousness. (…) This was the community happened upon by photographer Byron Newman and his wife, French actress Brigitte Ariel, during their time in the city, and it was this community that formed the basis of Newman’s 1984 book, The Ultimate Angels – a publication boldly, and undoubtedly, ahead of its time” In this extraordinary book, Byron Newman takes us into the streets, the apartments, the nightclubs, the brothels where a transsexual secret society defies all the conventions of the “normal world”.