Since 2017 Ingar Krauss has been photographing sugar beets individually, staging each root in natural light against a dark background, working in black and white with analog methods and reducing the object to the essentials of its appearance. The approach extends his earlier still-life project 39 Bilder. Over the years a typology of Beta vulgaris has accumulated, and the publisher describes the beet physiognomies as appearing in a simple dignity and melancholy, while the pictures also invite reflection on how people perceive nature and its products. Krauss is the photographer; the accompanying essay is by Eugen Blume, a Berlin-based freelance curator and author.

Rather than a conventional bound book, Hartmann Books published Sugar Beets in 2023 as a portfolio box containing 36 individual picture cards printed in tritone on cardboard, a folding poster showing the complete typology, and a text booklet with Blume’s essay. The box measures 22.5 by 29 centimeters, the poster unfolds to 64.5 by 90 centimeters, and the texts are in German and English. According to the publisher, Krauss works exclusively in analog and makes all the prints himself.

The cards, the poster and Blume’s essay together form a sustained study of a single ordinary cultivar, and the format asks to be handled slowly rather than browsed quickly. The publication’s dimensions, card count and languages follow the publisher’s own listing for the edition.