Book of the day – have a great long weekend! > The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside. Photographs by Ryann Ford. powerHouse Books. “The Last Stop does far more than capture the remarkable, effective design of our nation’s road stops. It preserves a moment in time that is quickly fading, a unique period in the American travel experience when the journey was just as important as the destination. It’s clear these modest structures did far more than provide picnic tables, they shaped our collective experience of golden-age car travel across the vast United States. Rest areas are being closed and demolished all over the country. With countless commercial options at nearly every highway exit, and states needing to cut expenses, many felt that these old rest stops were no longer necessary.  Ford spent years on the road ducking under fences, stepping over fallen trees, and hiking through snow to reach some of these iconic rest stops; in doing so, she learned that they are so much more than toilets and tables – for the past several decades they have given millions of travelers from around the world rest, relief, hospitality and nostalgia.” $ 45.00

Book of the day > Alexander Girard: A Designer's Universe. Vitra Design Museum. 'This huge Girard compendium, published by Vitra, is the first to draw on the vast holdings of his estate. Alexander Girard was one of the most important modern textile artists and interior designers of the 20th century. He combined Pop and Folk art influences to create a colorfully opulent aesthetic language whose impact continues to be felt today. This richly illustrated catalogue draws on the vast holdings in Girard’s private estate, which were exhaustively investigated for the first time at the Vitra Design Museum. The book presents the oeuvre of the multitalented designer in all its facets, while offering the first scholarly, critical examination of his work. Six essays address Girard’s textile and graphic design for the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, interior design projects such as the Irwin Miller House in Columbus, Indiana (1953), and the restaurant La Fonda del Sol in New York (1960), his activities as a pioneering exhibition organizer and curator, his roots in Italy and his passion for folk art, which resulted in a collection of more than 100,000 objects and served as one of the most important sources of inspiration for his own work. In addition to extensive portfolios with never-before-shown archive materials, the publication also provides a biography and a complete list of works, plus articles by Susan Brown, Jochen Eisenbrand, Barbara Hauss, Alexandra Lange, Monica Obniski and Jonathan Olivares." $ 85.00

Book of the day > Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only. By Hamza Walker & Aram Moshayedi.  Hammer Museum/ DelMonico/ Prestel. “This book accompanies the third biennial focused on art from the Los Angeles area, with an emphasis on emerging and underrecognized artists [Kelly Akashi • Huguette Caland • Eckhaus Latta • Rafa Esparza • Lauren Davis Fisher • Todd Gray • Joel Holmberg • Margaret Honda • Arthur Jafa • Labor Link TV • Laida Lertxundi • Adam Linder • Guthrie Lonergan • Rebecca Morris • Shahryar Nashat • Silke Otto-Knapp • Gala Porras-Kim• Sterling Ruby • Aram Saroyan • Kenzi Shiokava • Daniel R. Small • Wadada Leo Smith • Martine Syms • Kenneth Tam • Mark Verabioff • Dena Yago ]. Made in L.A. has established itself as an important platform for a wildly diverse population of artists. The biennial exhibition offers a view onto the current trends and practices developed within and throughout Los Angeles, one of the most active and energetic art communities in the world. Under the direction of co-curators Aram Moshayedi and Hamza Walker, the 2016 iteration promises to offer a mix of the local and international perspectives that are an important part of the city’s identity.” 

Book of the day – the day of Dylan’s 75^th birthday > Daniel Kramer. Bob Dylan: A Year and a Day. Taschen. “When photographer Daniel Kramer first met Bob Dylan, the 23-year-old singer was still widely unknown. At their initial meeting in Woodstock, Dylan seemed restless and uncomfortable in front of the camera. Yet over the course of a year and a day, all of that would change. From 1964 to 1965, Kramer’s extraordinary access to Bob Dylan on tour, in concert, and backstage, allowed for one of the most mesmerizing portfolios of any recording artist and a stunning document of Dylan breaking through to superstardom.

Highlights include the Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall concert with Joan Baez; the Bringing It All Back Home recording sessions; and the now famous concert at Forest Hills, when Dylan’s controversial transition to electric guitar exemplified his constant, cryptic state of becoming. As much a document of a seminal period of rock-n-roll history as of Dylan himself, the pictures also feature such compelling friends and collaborators as Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Allen Ginsberg, and Albert Grossman.

When first published in 1967, with the encouragement of W. Eugene Smith, Kramer’s Dylan portfolio became an instant classic. Now, a half-century later, Taschen rediscovers this body of work with a curated selection of near 200 images, many never published before, including outtakes from the Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited album cover shoots. A prized edition for any serious Dylan fan, this is an at once intimate and infinitely evocative testimony to a seminal photographer, to a particular point in time, and to a particular, mysterious artist at the moment his career went global.” $ 700.00

Book of the day > Rock ‘N’ Roll Cuisine (1988). $25 to the first caller 310-458-1499/emailer sales@arcanabooks.com. Have a great weekend!
 As the back cover says “The stars of our time – including George Michael, The Bangles, Phil Collins, Talking Heads, Mick Jagger, Heart,Sting, and many more – have contributed some of the weirdest, wittiest and most entertaining recipes for the favourite dishes, together with snapshots and drawings of the motley crew at home in their kitchens. So turn up the volume, bring on the heat and if it’s too hot – perhaps you’re too old!”  Includes such gems as Yoko Ono’s Dream Soup, Paul Stanley’s Caesar Salad “and something else,” Meat Loaf’s Meat Loaf, and Spandau Ballet’s very rock and roll 1987 dressing room catering rider.

Book of the day > Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. MCA, Met, MOCA, Skira Rizzoli,. "The definitive monograph on contemporary African American painter Kerry James Marshall, accompanying a major traveling retrospective. This long-awaited volume celebrates the work of Kerry James Marshall, one of America’s greatest living painters. Born before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, in Birmingham, Alabama, and witness to the Watts riots in 1965, Marshall has long been an inspired and imaginative chronicler of the African American experience. Best known for large-scale interiors, landscapes, and portraits featuring powerful black figures, Marshall explores narratives of African American history from slave ships to the present and draws upon his deep knowledge of art history from the Renaissance to twentieth-century abstraction, as well as other sources such as the comic book and the muralist tradition. With luscious color and brushstrokes and highly detailed patterning, his direct and intimate scenes of black middle-class life conjure a wide range of emotions, resulting in powerful paintings that confront the position of African Americans throughout American history. Richly illustrated, this monumental book features essays by noted curators as well as the artist, and more than 100 paintings from throughout the artist’s career arranged thematically by subject: history painting; beauty, as expressed through the nude, portraiture, and self-portraiture; landscape; religion; and the politics of black nationalism." $ 65.00 
 

Book of the day > Emanations: the Art of the Cameraless Photograph by Geofrey Batchen. Prestel.  “An unparalleled exploration of the art of cameraless photography, this expansive book offers an authoritative and lavishly illustrated history of photography made without a camera, along with a critical discussion of the practice. Since the early 19th century and the invention of photography, artists have been experimenting with various methods for creating photographs without a camera. At once exhaustive and compelling, this book reveals the myriad approaches artists have used to create photographic images using just paper and a source of radiation. Simultaneously a chronological history and a thematic study, this book explores a range of practices, some of which have been in use for more than a century, while others are entirely contemporary. From placing objects on light-sensitive paper and drawing on blackened glass plates to radiography, photocopying, and digital scanning, this is an elemental kind of photography that repudiates the idea that technology advances in only one direction. By eliminating the camera, artists are able to focus on other ways of making photographic pictures. They allow the world to leave its own imprint, to speak for itself as itself. This volume includes 160 exquisitely reproduced works of this kind. In turns abstract and realist, haunting and intricate, they seem to capture the very essence of their subjects. Featuring artists from the 19th century to today, this book explores cameraless photography as an important and influential medium that deserves to be included at the forefront of today’s conversations about contemporary art.” $ 60.00

Book of the day > Gerhard Richter: Panorama | A Retrospective: Expanded Edition. D.A.P./TATE. “The expanded edition of the definitive Gerhard Richter survey. First published on the occasion of the major retrospective exhibition that opened at Tate Modern in 2011, Gerhard Richter: Panorama is the most complete overview of the artist’s entire career to date. This stunningly illustrated survey encompasses works from the late 1950s to the present—photo-paintings, abstractions, landscapes, seascapes, portraits, color charts, grey paintings, glass and mirror works, sculptures, drawings and photographs—providing the definitive account of Richter’s achievements. It also includes studio photographs, archival images and texts by an array of international critics and curators. This expanded edition of Panorama includes a new text by Mark Godfrey that covers works made since the 2011 exhibition, including the Strip, Flow and Birkenau paintings, as well as an updated chronology. With more than 300 illustrations, and an interview between Richter and Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate, this book remains the most comprehensive survey of one of the world’s pre-eminent contemporary artists.”

Book of the day today – book signing at Arcana tomorrow, 5-7! > Olivia Bee: Kids in Love. Join us Saturday at Arcana for a book signing with Olivia Bee, featuring a short but special acoustic set with BØRNS! Olivia Bee: Kids in Love. Aperture. “Olivia Bee is celebrated for her dreamy, evocative portraits and landscapes rich with implied narratives of intimacy, freedom, and adventure. Olivia Bee: Kids in Love showcases two bodies of photographic work, including the series, Enveloped in a Dream, that first brought Bee recognition as a teenager. This first series offers a visual diary of girlhood friendship and the exploration of self, showcasing Bee’s unique ability to convey the bittersweet nostalgia of adolescence on the brink of adulthood and new possibilities. The second set of images, Kids in Love, is drawn from recent work and continues Bee’s photographic chronicle of her circle of friends and new loves, capturing both the pleasures and terrors of the fleeting passage of romanticized youth. While the work continues to evolve, what remains constant is her seductive use of color and photographic artifact, as well as the immediacy and charge of each image. Bee gives voice to the self-awareness and visual fluency of the millennial generation. Experiences are sharply felt, and easily communicated and shared, generating visual records that render these memories as significant as the moments themselves. Tavi Gevinson, founding editor of the online magazine Rookie and Bee’s frequent collaborator and model, writes about the work and about the role of images as social currency in today’s image-driven world.” $ 39.95 @oliviab33, @bornsmusic, @aperturefnd

Can't make it but want Olivia to sign a book for you? Order one here until 4pm tomorrow.

Book of the day > Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem. Steidl / The Gordon Parks Foundation / The Art Institute of Chicago. “By the mid-1940s, Gordon Parks was a successful photographer and Ralph Ellison began work on his acclaimed novel Invisible Man (1952). It is relatively unknown, however, that the two men were friends and that their common vision of racial injustice inspired collaboration on two important projects, in 1948 and 1952. Parks and Ellison first joined forces on an essay titled “Harlem Is Nowhere” for ’48: The Magazine of the Year. Conceived while Ellison was already writing Invisible Man, this illustrated essay was centered on Harlem’s Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic—the first non-segregated psychiatric clinic in New York City—as a case study for the social and economic conditions of the neighborhood. He chose Parks to create the accompanying photographs and during the winter months of 1948, the two roamed the streets of Harlem. In 1952 they worked together again on “A Man Becomes Invisible” for the August 25 issue of Life magazine, which promoted Ellison’s newly released novel.  This is the first publication on Parks’ and Ellison’s collaboration on these two projects, one of which was lost while the other was published only in reduced form. The catalogue provides an in-depth look at the artists’ shared vision of black life in America, with Harlem as its nerve center.”