Book of the day > African Textiles: The Karun Thakar Collection. Prestel. “This book offers a fascinating journey through the history and culture of textiles in Africa drawn from the private collection of Karun Thakar, widely considered to be one of the best in the world.  This collection of rare and exquisite textiles from Central, Northern, and West Africa includes weavings from Ghana, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast; embroideries, veils, and haiks from Morocco and Tunisia; and raffia fabrics from Congo. Organized by region, each piece is dramatically photographed to highlight the extraordinary colors, patterns, and skill with which it was created. Drawn from a collection consisting of over 4,000 pieces, this book illustrates the most important textiles from the renowned collection. The book provides not only a thrilling sample of timeless patterns and designs but also a historical perspective that deepens our understanding of the importance of woven materials in the African tradition.”

Book of the day > Nicolas Winding Refn: The Act of Seeing. Fab Press. “For the first time filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn trawls through his unique collection of rare American film posters to unfold ways the viewer validates and actualizes the presentation of key images into their own personal reality. From the vintage visuals of SPIKED HEELS AND BLACK NYLONS, OBSCENE HOUSE and ALICE IN ACIDLAND to THE TWISTED SEX, TORTURE ME KISS ME and ZERO IN AND SCREAM – to name just a few of the tantalizing film titles showcased – the controversial Danish icon constructs a whole new way of looking at the key artwork and shameless hyperbole thought up in the back alley gutters of the exploitation industry. The masterfully overblown promises and alluring tag-lines were dubious attractions solely devised to persuade the ravished sight to suppress the cool head of reason and tempt it to sit in a dark auditorium to watch other people’s lurid lives shockingly unravel. Now the celebrated filmmaker makes complicit voyeurs of us all by editing his exceptional collection of little-seen and vivid front-of-house displays into an extraordinary creation to match the observation sensations explored in his own pioneering screen work. With comprehensive historical context provided for each poster and every production detail meticulously overseen by Winding Refn himself, this book encapsulates everything he has knows about eyewitness confrontation on a heart-felt journey into the art and act of seeing. This lavish quarter bound volume has unprecedented production values including silk covered boards and a cloth bound gold embossed slipcase.”

Book of the day > Carly Steinbrunn: The Voyage of Discovery. Mack.

A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveller, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see. I am subject to a double infirmity: I am hurt by everything I see, and I constantly reproach myself for not looking as much as I should. Claude Lévi-Strauss, "Tristes Tropiques"

Carly Steinbrunn’s The Voyage of Discovery poses as the scientific report of a mission to discover and describe unknown worlds. The photographs present an inventory of findings, with an encyclopaedic curiosity reminiscent of the expeditionary narratives of James Cook and the travelogues of Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Touching upon the realms of geography, botanics, anthropology and zoology, Steinbrunn’s body of work borrows from the varied approaches of the scientific register, and from the history of photography. Echoing Le Gray and Blossfeldt to evoke the aesthetic catalogue of photography’s own evolution, Steinbrunn also enfolds found images to question the transparency of the medium, where a photograph is simultaneously an index of reality and a fabrication.

Steinbrunn’s project is wilfully inconclusive, offering only signs to a pathway through a territory that exists only within the universe of her book. Ultimately, the work bears reference to that particular history which links photography to exploration – the successive conquests of the sea, the air and outer space – and Steinbrunn suggests that, in an age where every island has been charted, every frontier has been breached, the only journey left is inside the image itself.

Carly Steinbrunn (b, 1982) is a French artist who lives and works in London. The Voyage of Discovery is her first book. She is currently developing The Astronomical Unit, in collaboration with the Société Française de Photographie in Paris, a project inspired by Jules Janssen’s journey to Japan in 1874 attempting to photograph the transit of Venus.

Book of the day > The Encyclopedia of Air Jordans: The Complete History and Definitive Guide. Limited Slipcased Edition. "The Encyclopedia of Air Jordans catalogs every model from their inception in 1985. With hundreds of photos, this is a must own for any sneaker-head. Crowdfunded through Kickstarter by author Jay Lawrence, The Encyclopedia of Air Jordans is the very first book of its kind, dedicated solely to the 29 year history of the Air Jordan sneaker. Every model, every colorway and every bit of history entailed in the Air Jordan line with this 500+ page hardcover book. Filled with history, sneaker profiles, information, over 1300 photos, archives, price guides, OGs, Retros and practically all up-to-date information of Air Jordans 1-29."

Book of the day > Dana Lixenberg - Imperial Courts 1993-2015. Roma Publications. “In 1992, Dana Lixenberg travelled to South Central Los Angeles for a magazine story on the riots that erupted following the verdict in the Rodney King trial. What she encountered inspired her to revisit the area, and led her to the community of the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts. Returning countless times over the following twenty-two years, Lixenberg gradually created a collaborative portrait of the changing face of this community. Over the years, some in the community were killed, while others disappeared or went to jail, and others, once children in early photographs, grew up and had children of their own. In this way, Imperial Courts constitutes a complex and evocative record of the passage of time in an underserved community."

Book of the day and book signing tomorrow (1/28. 5:30-7:30)! Details on our website > Carlos Betancourt: Imperfect Utopia. Skira | Rizzoli. “Mixed-media artist Carlos Betancourt and his influential studio, Imperfect Utopia, helped to launch the Miami art scene in the 1980’s. Betancourt’s oeuvre is a lush explosion of radiant, eccentric colors in which he explores the kaleidoscope (multi-racial, multi-lingual, trans-cultural) of Caribbean and American culture. His work alludes to issues of memory, beauty, identity, and communication.  He bends the lines between art, photography, and nature in his photographs, collages, painting, installations, and conceptual pieces.

Carlos Betancourt’s imagery reinterprets the past and present and offers it in a fresh context. He is inspired by Puerto Rico, Miami, and his extensive travels; also artist Ana Mendieta’s interventions in nature, Robert Rauschenberg’s assemblages, Andy Warhol’s perceptions, Neo Rauch compositions, and a Federico Fellini-esque cast of characters for his photo assemblages.

This exuberant volume explores Betancourt’s body of work, with more than 250 images and texts by art critic Paul Laster, art history professor Robert Farris Thompson and United States Inaugural Poet, Richard Blanco.

His artwork is included in the permanent collections of various museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Portrait Gallery, and The Smithsonian Institute.”

Book of the day > Mark Bradford: Tears of a Tree. Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nurnberg. “This volume documents three monumental collage paintings by celebrated Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford (born 1961), titled "The Tears of a Tree," "Falling Horses" and "Lazy Mountain," which were inspired by the artist's visits to Shanghai.”

Book of the day > Beauty: Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial. Cooper Hewitt. “Beauty--the book, born out of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum's 2015 Triennial of the same name, curated by Andrea Lipps and Ellen Lupton--showcases some of the most exciting and provocative design created around the globe during the past three years. These pages aim not to emphasize the hidden beauty in the everyday--a beloved teapot or favorite shoe--but to locate transformational beauty in contemporary design that is exuberant, ethereal, atmospheric, experiential, exceptional or sublime. Sixty-two designers represent a vast range of disciplines from architecture, fashion, digital, graphic, and product design, to interiors, hair, nail and lighting design. The objects featured cause us to take pause, catch our breath and get lost in our pursuit to understand or explain them.

Designed by the innovative Kimberly Varella, the book is itself a tactile, fluid and provocative interpretation of beauty. Varella's design provides unexpected points of entry, playing with the concepts of beauty by using reflective surfaces, hot pink thread weaving pages together and a "heart" of the book, from which all else flows. Ethereal, Intricate, Extravagant, Transformative, Transgressive, Elemental and Emergent Beauty are the seven themes. Each section includes the individual designers in conversation with the curators about her or his process and beauty's differing forms, punctuated by rich galleries of their work, generating the ultimate feast for the senses.”

Book of the day > Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust. Royal Academy of Arts.  “From a basement in New York, Joseph Cornell channeled his limitless imagination into some of the most original art of the 20th century. Designed to accompany the Royal Academy’s landmark exhibition, this book allows the reader to step into the beguiling world of this fascinating artist.

Bringing together Joseph Cornell’s most remarkable work including boxes, assemblages and collages and films, Wanderlust is a long overdue celebration of an incomparable artist, a man the New York Times called “a poet of light; an architect of memory-fractured rooms and a connoisseur of stars, celestial and otherwise.

A connoisseur of an astonishing array of subjects, Cornell’s captivation with bygone imagery encompassed astronomical charts and geographical maps, Italian and Spanish Old Master paintings, historical ballet, early film, literature, poetry, and ornithology.

Despite hardly venturing beyond New York State, the notion of travel was central to his art. His imaginary voyages began as he searched Manhattan’s antique bookshops and dime stores, collecting a vast archive of paper ephemera and small objects to make his signature glass-fronted ‘shadow boxes’.

This book is a landmark publication examining this remarkable work. It brings together some of Cornell’s most compelling assemblages and box constructions (including Medici slot machines, soap-bubble sets, and animal habitats). The contributors raise questions about Cornell’s artistic processes while drawing parallels with historical modes of inquiry such as connoisseurship, exploration, and classification.”

Book of the day > Sean Maung: Barber Shops and Pigeon Coops. @seanmaung