Book of the day > Mark Bradford: Scorched Earth. Prestel. This generously illustrated volume features Mark Bradford's newest work which deals with the body and the performance of identity. Mark Bradford's layered, multi-textured paintings have earned him wide critical acclaim. His latest body of work comprises a new group of paintings and a video, each of which cycles around the idea of the body in crisis. Bradford witnessed the LA riots (1992) from his studio and has translated the fury, fear, outrage, pandemonium, and lasting wounds into artworks. This volume reproduces in full new paintings in which Bradford carved into the layered surface of the work creating depressions and arteries that structure these otherwise abstract compositions. Bradford's new video references the history of black standup comedy taking on Eddie Murphy's controversial concert film "Delirious" (1983). In the video Bradford takes on Murphy's searing comments on sexuality, reinterpreting this important cultural moment while considering the modalities of gender and its performance. Accompanying texts include Bradford's trenchant performance script and a scholarly text by Butler explores Bradford's critique of pervasive cultural racism and homophobia in society as a whole.

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Book of the day > TO LIVE AND DINE IN L.A: Menus and the Making of the Modern City by Josh Kun. Angel City Press. “In its fourth book collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Angel City Press releases To Live and Dine in L.A.: Menus and the Making of the Modern City by Josh Kun. With more than 200 menus--some dating back to the nineteenth century--culled from thousands in the Menu Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library, To Live and Dine in L.A. is a visual feast of a book.
In his detailed history, author Josh Kun riffs on what the food of a foodie city says about place and time; how some people eat big while others go hungry, and what that says about the past and now. Kun turns to chefs and cultural observers for their take on modern: Chef Roy Choi sits down long enough to say why he writes "some weird-ass menus." Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jonathan Gold looks at food as theater, and museum curator Staci Steinberger considers the design of classic menus like Lawry's. Restaurateur Bricia Lopez follows a Oaxacan menu into the heart of Koreatown.
The city's leading chefs remix vintage menus with a 21st-century spin: Joachim Splichal, Nancy Silverton, Susan Feniger, Ricardo Diaz, Jazz Singsanong, Cynthia Hawkins, Micah Wexler, Ramiro Arvizu and Jaime Martin del Campo cook up the past with new flavors. And, of course, the menus delight: Tick Tock Tea Room, Brown Derby, Trumps, Slapsy Maxie's, Don the Beachcomber, and scores more.
Kun tackles the timely and critically important topic of food justice, and shows how vintage menus teach us about more than just what's tasty, and serve as guides to the politics, economics, and sociology of eating. America is a dining-out nation, and our research indicates that L.A. has long been one of its top dining-out towns. The Library's collection is a living repository of meals past, an archive of urban eating that tells us about the changing historical role of food in the city, which is to say it tells us about just about everything that food touches: economics, culture, taste, race, politics, architecture, class, design, industry, gender, to name just some of the themes that recur on menu pages."

Book of the day > World Of Speed: Daring Men in Home-Made Racing Machines by Johannes Huwe. seltmann+söhne. “In his group of works World of Speed Johannes Huwe, in his own inimitable style, captures images of the unique world of speed freaks in the Great Salt Lake Desert, in northern Utah. The salt lake El Mirage can be found 16 miles north of Highway 18, where all roads end. This is a deserted and surreal place in the Mojave Desert, with daytime temperatures of 45 degrees. Although seething with rattlesnakes it was still the perfect location for films like Terminator 2 and Lethal Weapon. 'Land Speed Racer' is the name given to those daring men in their home-made racing machines. This kind of racing is the last motor sports bastion still in the hands of amateurs. The participants of the races are diverse, ranging from simple car mechanics to millionaires who arrive in the desert with their truck and a whole team. Capturing the event presents a particular challenge to photographer and equipment. Heat and dust take their toll on both.”

Book of the day > Matthew Porter: Archipelago. MACK. "Archipelago is a journey into an interior, upriver, towards an enigmatic hinterland. At any one instance, Matthew Porter sets up correlations between disparate images, configured on each page like islands in an archipelago, clusters which form their own, indigenous subjects. Short texts, placed at intervals, reveal the connective tissue binding varied subjects – Jane Fonda and the Vietnam War, the Hawaiian Island of Kaua'i and Hollywood. What interests Porter is the legacy of the photographic image, and its capacity to reach across history, to make intelligible to us what we already know, or, encountered at the right moment, that which we could not otherwise know. 'Porter’s stills function like portals', writes Lindsay Caplan, 'obliquely suggestive of historical events, modernist styles, and codified genres, sometimes all at the same time… this very contemporary condition in which knowing too much and knowing too little invoke the same visceral state'."

Book of the day > Niki de Saint Phalle. La Fábrica/Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.” This gorgeous volume offers the most complete overview in print of the oeuvre of Niki de Saint Phalle, one of the most influential and popular artists of the postwar period. The French-American artist was educated according to the social codes of upper-class New York society, but boldly rejected the expectations of her family to instead choose a career in art. Moving to Paris in the 1960s, she befriended the Nouveau Réaliste artists Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely, creating her famous Shooting Paintings, the Nanas (brightly chromatic biomorphic sculptures of female archetypes), as well as experimental films, decors and costumes for ballet productions and collaborations with Tinguely, Robert Rauschenberg and others. Saint Phalle was adept at using the media to consolidate her public image, and soon became an icon of the 1960s art scene, attaining a broad cultural profile that was furthered by her numerous public art projects, including the Tarot Garden in Tuscany and the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris. This superbly produced publication-which features a die-cut cover through which Saint Phalle peers, aiming her gun-presents her works in all media, along with ephemera and archival photographs documenting her rich career and life.”

Join us tomorrow (Sunday, 6/14, 4-6 at Arcana) for a book signing tomorrow for the Book of the day > Maria Sabina by Gusmano Cesaretti. Conaculta.

Maria Sabina (1888-1985) was a healer, curandera, and Shaman in the Sierra Mazateca in the state of Oaxaca. She used the power of the sacred mushroom as part of her ceremonies that cured hundreds in her community throughout her lifetime. This association with the Psilocybin mushroom resulted in an unlikely late in life counterculture notoriety that brought her into contact with the likes of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Mick Jagger.

Book of the day > Cecily Brown. Silvana Editoriale.  “New York-based British painter Cecily Brown makes sumptuous oil paintings combining abstract and figurative elements, art-historical references and erotic, fragmented bodies in compositions so densely layered that one of Brown's paintings can look ‘like an enormous colored anthill, with thousands of insects following each other, climbing over each other, hiding and reappearing, leaving colorful traces of their movements,’ as Danilo Eccher writes in his catalogue essay. This substantial monograph is published to accompany Brown's survey exhibition at the Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin, and features nearly 50 works, including paintings, works on paper, gouache and watercolors as well as seven monotypes, representing the range of Brown's work as well as its unifying concerns. Also included are newly commissioned essays by Danilo Eccher, Alessandro Rabottini and Anna Musini.”

Book of the day > Jamel Shabazz: Reflections from the ‘80s. Hardhitta Gallery. “Shabazz has been visually representing urban New York for the past 40 years. His iconic images capture the lifestyle and vibrant energy of the time like no other. He has become one of the key people to immortalize the New York of the ’80s. To this day, his quintessential and mesmerizing work influences international fashion trends and global youth culture, and has also served as a source of inspiration for countless films. His secret lies in his care and compassion for people. In the ’80s, New York was a tough environment: violent rival street gangs, drugs, and arrests were part of the city’s dark fabric and gave rise to the artistic expression of social and political injustices of the African American community. Many young people found themselves at difficult crossroads or facing challenging and often violent day-to-day realities. Shabazz wanted to do what he could to ease the tension of his community and help kids stay out of trouble. So he took to the streets with his camera, attracting young people for whom he became a mentor and inspiration, helping with life choices and keeping a positive outlook for the future. These photographs are his visual diary – a collection of memories, moments, conversations, people, and details. They reflect personal relationships, while giving expression to universal sentiments of all adolescents, such as hope, dreams, self-discovery, and living in the moment.” “All too often my work is misinterpreted, they look at it and they just see urban culture and hip hop in the African American community. But it’s more broad than that, it´s a universal body of work about compassion, empathy, bringing out the beauty within people and the love that bridges the gaps between us.” -Jamel Shabazz

Book of the day > Pradasphere. Abrams. “Founded in 1913, Prada has evolved into a brand with a unique ability to embed thought-provoking, clever ideas in totally pleasurable objects—from shoes and bags to coats, dresses, and skirts, the clothing makes a statement. And Pradasphere—both in its package and content—does the same. Pradasphere is a collection of archival objects arranged to reveal the complex, often- intertwined obsessions of one of the world’s most influential designers. The book takes you on an aesthetic journey that spans the past 30 years. Exclusive photographs of clothing and accessories illustrate Prada’s design narrative and show the exquisite craftsmanship and materials behind the creations. Pradasphere also explores Prada’s culture, including advertising photography, architecture, and commissioned films by directors such as Wes Anderson and Ridley Scott.”

Book of the day > Dennis Morris: The Bollocks. Zero+ Publishing. Originally only available in a deluxe, limited edition version including 2 prints (available from us for $ 800), Zero + has at long last released the trade version of this excellent book! “In 1977, photographer Dennis Morris, known for his iconic work with Bob Marley and the Wailers, turned his lens toward the Sex Pistols and captured an explosion of creativity that changed music and fashion forever. The Bollocks: A Photo Essay of the Sex Pistols is a collection of raw, unfiltered, gritty images covering a year in the band’s prime, some of which have never before been published. This powerful photo essay is a must-have for any fan of the scene, providing an insider’s look at the punk life through primal images captured both on stage and behind-the-scenes with the Sex Pistols. The body of work is composed of 106 large format black and white and color plates, organized in chapters “On the Road,” “Soundcheck,” “Live,” “Backstage,” “Portraits,” and “The Scene.” Includes text by Dennis Morris, Billy Idol, Shepard Fairey, Billy Morrison, and Rodney Bingenheimer.”