In Focus: “Like Father, Like Son” by Anna Aïcher and “American Beef” by Lorenzo Bacci and Marcel Swann

The latest photobooks picks by Der Greif

“In Focus” is Der Greif’s photobook review series, spotlights our picks from the current open call for submissions and our community artists' most recent publications. This month, we bring out of our shelf a duo of photobooks on the preservation of certain community practices between reality and cultural myth and the performativity of fighting in today’s culture: “Like Father, Like Son” by Anna Aïcher and “American Beef” by Lorenzo Bacci and Marcel Swann.

From the traditional rites of passage of lower Bavarian and Austrian village life to the high-stakes adrenaline of American backyard fight clubs, the quest for identity is often written on the body and the culture inscribed within physically-intensive traditions. Though separated by miles and different cultural contexts, both works grapple with the same question: How do certain places inform rituals and eventually shape masculinity and the spectacle of its performance today?

In “American Beef,” Lorenzo Bacci and Marcel Swann present a stark narration of the ‘Streetbeefs’ phenomenon. Observed over the course of two years in Virginia, this project reveals the complexity of the United States as a fragmented, heterogeneous mosaic. The work emerges as a constellation of elements shaping a narrative prism through which the deep-seated contradictions of the contemporary American landscape are exposed. Founded in Harrisonburg by Chris ‘Scarface’ Wilmore, this fight club offers a model where violence is confined to an arena with the specific goal of resolving interpersonal conflicts without the use of firearms. This creates a paradoxical dynamic where the human body turns into the primary instrument of conflict resolution and physical violence gets elevated to a codified ritual, anchored in a framework of rules and respect.

The project further highlights how the virtual mediation of these events plays a crucial role in the spectacularization of these encounters: participants lean into aesthetics and choreography, hallmarks of a ritualistic practice deeply shaped by contemporary digital culture. As Streetbeefs’ popularity grows, the so-called ‘beefs’ are increasingly joined by amateur athletes who enter the ring to perform carefully constructed personas. In this ecosystem, an online presence is a way to affirm one’s existence through amplification of this double. The fight becomes an experience that repeats into multiple chambers of spectacle. Beyond merely marking the end of a conflict, the video uploaded online becomes a permanent digital record: a certification of resolution that transforms a fleeting event into a permanent archive with a global reach. In our current digital ecology, the image has become a form of currency where the line between ‘being’ and ‘being seen’ blurs. “American Beef” embraces the hyper-mediated chaos of the internet era. Its industrial layout, clashing textures and a glossy dust jacket expose how modern violence is purposefully staged for virtual circulation. With cover design by the renowned Paul Sahre and image sequencing by Federico Manias, American Beef is built to mimic the raw, fast-paced nature of the Virginia backyard fight club phenomenon. This juxtaposition of a gritty, utilitarian staple binding with a slick, high-gloss exterior perfectly mirrors the subject matter: a gritty backyard brawl built specifically to stream globally on digital screens. The pages feel fast, incorporating expressive handwriting, quiet and hyper-active images giving stage to cinematographic sequence.

While “American Beef” captures identity within double register of a local and global ritual and spectacle, Aïcher’s “Like Father, Like Son” looks to less mediated rites of passage in the transition from youth to adulthood as in ‘Ranggeln’, or a type of folk wrestling dating back to Celtic times. Designed by Mitzi Gugg, the book presents a quiet, introspective physical object. It features a subtle cover featuring minimalist line illustrations by Steffi Bauer – an apple on the back and a branch resembling a hand on the front. This design elements lean heavily on the German idiom "Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm" (“the apple doesn't fall far from the tree”), taking its cue from the title itself, which invokes the old saying that describes the conforming guise running from one generation to another. Aïcher’s work, though, begins at the moment that saying turns into a question of identity and belonging. Her quest started upon leaving her childhood home, a village near the German-Austrian border, triggering a return to the region to document the rituals that define it and portray the young people who attend the old rituals and traditions that remain vibrant in these small communities. Her approach rediscovers the internal mechanics of these groups and how, for example, a self-defense practice turned into a sport with its own competitions and local traditions, like the Hundstein-Hagmoar tradition she delves into.

One tender close-up shot captures the quiet aftermath of violence: an injured wrist, wrapped in bandage. A portrait freezes the volatile spark before the fight as two youngsters clenching each other's t-shirts, standing chest-to-chest and face-to-face, suspended in the tense moment right before the fight begins. Aicher’s layout handles the imagery with space and breath: a highly painterly interplay of light and shadow. The layout honors the poetic and metaphorical nature of the photographs, allowing close-up macro shots of skin, grass, gripping hands, and exhaustion to feel intimate and timeless rather than sensationalized.

What is lost, what is preserved, and what social dynamics are inscribed into this secondary realm of performance, where the body is continually caught between raw physical presence and its mediated double? By bringing these two publications out of the shelf, we are drawn to confront the shifting geography of contemporary masculinity and communal ritual. Bacci and Swann map out a digital landscape where the camera is an omnipresent judge, transforming modern violence into an existential bid for visibility within a globalized network. Conversely, Aïcher gently pulls us back toward the soil, utilizing a deliberate photographic pace to capture a localized lineage before it can be entirely flattened into spectacle. Through their clashing aesthetics – the slick, industrial speed of a backyard brawl versus the quiet, textured breathing room of a folk tradition – these works prove that in our hyper-visual era, how we choose to print an identity determines exactly how much of it will survive.

Explore more of our community photobooks here or “Florida Boys” by Josh Aronson as it offers a counterpoint to the performance that often shapes contemporary masculinity. If you’d like to read more on how landscape, body, ritual, and staging become powerful sites of reclamation deep dive into “SPEEDWELL Contemporary’s “The Haunted – Contemporary Photography Conjured in New England” and Tabitha Barnard’s “Dead Trees Speak to Me”.