Book of the day (month?! year?! -- it's that good...) > Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles. Metropolis Books, Artbook|DAP. “Los Angeles is a city of dualities—sunshine and noir, coastline beaches and urban grit, natural beauty and suburban sprawl, the obvious and the hidden. Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles reveals these dualities and more, in images captured by master photographers such as Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander, Daido Moriyama, Julius Shulman and Garry Winogrand, as well as many younger artists, among them Matthew Brandt, Katy Grannan, Alex Israel, Lise Sarfati and Ed Templeton, just to name a few. Taken together, these individual views by more than 130 artists form a collective vision of a place where myth and reality are often indistinguishable. Spinning off the highly acclaimed Looking at Los Angeles (Metropolis Books, 2005), Both Sides of Sunset presents an updated and equally unromantic vision of this beloved and scorned metropolis. In the years since the first book was published, the artistic landscape of Los Angeles has flourished and evolved. The extraordinary Getty Museum project Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980 focused global attention on the city's artistic heritage, and this interest has only continued to grow. Both Sides of Sunset showcases many of the artists featured in the original book—such as Lewis Baltz, Catherine Opie, Stephen Shore and James Welling—but also incorporates new images that portray a city that is at once unhinged and driven by irrepressible exuberance. Proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit Inner-City Arts—an oasis of learning, achievement and creativity in the heart of Los Angeles' Skid Row that brings arts education to elementary, middle and high school students.
Contributing photographers and artists are Robert Adams, Iwan Baan, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Sara Jane Boyers, Tim Bradley, Matthew Brandt, Charles Brittin, Mauren Brodbeck, Michael Butler, Craig Carlson, Oscar Castillo, Sam Comen, Kevin Cooley, Zoe Crosher, Bruce Davidson, Raymond Depardon, Tomas T. Diaz, Jeff Divine, John Divola, Mitch Dobrowner, David Drebin, Mitch Epstein, Elliott Erwitt, Dennis Feldman, Christina Fernandez, Larry Fink, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Robbert Flick, Lee Friedlander, Ron Galella, Harry Gamboa Jr., Niccolo Gandolfi, Bruce Gilden, Jim Goldberg, Katy Grannan, Bob Gruen, Nolan Hall, Karen Halverson, Grant Hatfield, Alexandra Hedison, Anthony Hernandez, Todd Hido, Stephen Hilger, Josef Hoflehner, Hugh Holland, Peter Holzhauer, Dennis Hopper, Bettina Hubby, John Humble, Martin Hyers and William Mebane Alex Israel, Graciela Iturbide, Steve Kahn, Yoko Kanayama, Dennis Keeley, Veronika Kellndorfer, Lisa Kereszi, Douglas Kirkland, Brandon Lattu, Gary Leonard, Michael Light, Dan Lopez, Alex MacLean, Florian Maier-Aichen, David Maisel, Steve McCurry, Susan Meiselas, Philip Melnick, Joel Meyerowitz, Zoran Milosavljevic, Daido Moriyama, Sarah Morris, Grant Mudford, Karin Apollonia Müller, Warren Neidich, Steven Nilsson, Jane O’Neal, Catherine Opie, Eric Orr, Bill Owens, Ed Panar, John Pfahl, George Porcari, Matthew Porter, Alex Prager, Marvin Rand, Bill Ray, Lara Jo Regan, Doug Rickard, Jennifer Robbins, Ed Ruscha, Mark Ruwedel, Sarah Sackner, Lise Sarfati, Lynn Saville, Ferdinando Scianna, Denise Scott Brown, Allan Sekula, Craig Semetko, Michael Shields, Stephen Shore, Julius Shulman, Nicolas Silberfaden, Mike Slack, SPOT, Randi Malkin Steinberger, Dennis Stock, Tim Street-Porter, Larry Sultan, Mark Swope, George Tate, Deanna Templeton, Ed Templeton, Ben Tierney, Tseng Kwong-Chi, John Valadez, Camilo José Vergara, Ellen von Unwerth, Nick Waplington, Julian Wasser, Bruce Weber, James Welling, Henry Wessel, Garry Winogrand, Steve Winter and Amir Zaki. “

Book of the day > Black Dolls: Unique African American Dolls, 1850-1930 From the Collection of Deborah Neff. Radius Books/Mingei Museum. "This book presents over 100 unique handmade African American dolls made between 1850 and 1930 from the collection of Deborah Neff, a Connecticut-based collector and champion of vernacular art. It is believed that African Americans created these dolls for the children in their lives, including members of their own families and respective communities as well as white children in their charge. Acquired over the last 25 years, this renowned collection is considered to be one of the finest of its kind ever to be assembled. The dolls portray faithful yet stylized representations of young and old African Americans-playful boys and girls, well-dressed gentlemen, elegant young ladies, and distinguished older men and women. Made with scraps of cloth, ribbon and lace, or old socks, and stuffed with wool or cotton, these unusual dolls are charming and full of emotional spirit. Their faces are embroidered, stitched and painted to express a variety of emotions, each representing a fascinating story of culture and identity in American history. The book also features an assortment of rare vintage photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, showing both black and white children holding, posing or playing with their dolls. After five years of combing the archives of museums, historical societies and private collections, the research done for this volume uncovered fascinating vernacular photographs of African American children holding white dolls and Caucasian children holding black dolls-but there was not a single image of an African American person holding a black doll. This complex combination of text and imagery has helped transform this book into a commentary about social mobility and racial identity conveyed through the untold story of these dolls. "

Book of the day > Airline Visual Identity. Callisto Publishers. " Airline Visual Identity: 1945-1975 chronicles the corporate images of the airline industry through visual advertising. The large format book carefully curates the best examples of commercial art from the period, taking the reader back in time to witness the glory days of the airline industry in a museum-like experience.

Accompanying the amazing artwork in Airline Visual Identity: 1945-1975 is a series of well researched case studies that provide unique insight into the design and advertising methods of an era when airlines were considered the most glamorous business sector and quality was the main criterion for selecting a flight. Forged by some of the best creative minds of the time, such as designers like Ivan Chermayeff, Otl Aicher, Massimo Vignellli, Academy Award winner Saul Bass, as well as advertising luminaries like Mary Wells Lawrence, the artwork found in Airline Visual Identity: 1945-1975 illustrates the shift from traditional methods of corporate design and advertising to comprehensive modern identity branding programs generally introduced in the 1960's.

To reproduce all of the images as precisely as possible, a total of seventeen different colors, five different varnishes, and two different methods of foil printing and embossing were used. The result is a book of exceptional vivacity that pushes the limits of modern art printing technology."

Book of the day > Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us by Paul Koudounaris. Thames & Hudson. " The astonishing story of how the dead live on in memorials and traditions across the globe, from Ethiopia and Nepal to Cambodia and Rwanda, told through arresting images and captivating narration. Death is universal, but the human response to death varies widely. In Western society, death is usually medicalized and taboo, and kept apart from the world of the living, while in much of the rest of the world, and for much of human history, death has commonly been far more integrated into peoples’ daily existence, and human remains are as much a reminder of life, memento vitae, as of death, memento mori. Through photos taken at more than 250 sites in thirty countries over a decade, Paul Koudounaris has captured death around the world. From Bolivia’s “festival of the little pug-nosed ones,” where skulls are festooned with flowers and given cigarettes to smoke and beanie hats to protect them from the weather to Indonesian families who dress mummies and include them in their household routines; from naturally preserved Buddhist monks and memorials to genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia to the dramatic climax of Europe’s great ossuaries, Memento Mori defies taboo to demonstrate how the dead continue to be present in the lives of people everywhere. 500+ color illustrations."