Book of the Day Posted Jan 15, 2022

Book of the Day > Jake Reinhart: Laurel Mountain Laurel

● Purchase ● Laurel Mountain Laurel: the title is a sort of rough palindrome, appropriate for Jake Reinhart’s vision, in which time is reflected upon itself and the end is also the beginning (and is also the end). The transient and the enduring are revealed to be one and the same.
 
These photographs – somehow both tender and unsparing – were made in Southwestern Pennsylvania, in the Youghiogheny region. One surviving translation has it that “Yough” means four, and “henné” means stream. “I’ve been along those four streams, and I’ve seen how they come together;” Reinhart says, “losing their specificity yet retaining what is inherent to each – creating something larger and joining places and people that would otherwise appear disjointed and separate.”
 
As for the streams, so for the images in Laurel Mountain Laurel: individual pictures exist essentially, while together they bind both space and time – the eternal and the geological brought into a semblance of coherence with the fragile and the human. We see that, despite our best efforts to erase and exploit, the land will ultimately have its own way, and on its own schedule.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 14, 2022

Book of the Day > Standing On The Corner Art Ensemble & Dozie Kanu: Function

● Purchase ● A postcard book that serves as an accompaniment to Standing On The Corner Art Ensemble's new movie "Function: An Exhibition-Index Film" made in collaboration with the Studio Museum Harlem and sculptor Dozie Kanu. The piece is part film essay, part performance film and mediates upon time, memory, forgetfulness, sculpture, anti-prophetics and the time travel function of images -- both still and moving -- how they depict the past and simultaneously reveal conditions of the future. The book is symbolic of that idea; stills from the film have been converted to postcards meant to physically travel time and space.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 13, 2022

Book of the Day > Sadie Barnette: Legacy and Legend

● Purchase ● Sadie Barnette’s celebratory installations explore collective and familial histories in glittering, speculative spaces
 
Oakland-based multimedia artist Sadie Barnette (born 1984) has made groundbreaking explorations of her own family’s history and archives. She situates her father Rodney Barnette’s activism, including his founding of the Black Panther chapter in Compton, CA, and his surveillance by the FBI, in the social history of California and global histories of resistance against racial injustice. Through government documents, photography, writing, installation and her signature use of hot pink, Barnette transforms the bond between father and daughter into an art that speaks to the power of community action. This volume features several new works created for the exhibition, as well as a reproduction of the zine Barnette created as a tribute to her father’s New Eagle Creek Saloon, the first Black-owned gay bar in San Francisco.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 12, 2022

Book of the Day > Senon Williams: Words Don't Mean Much

● Purchase ● ★ Join us for a book signing with Senon Williams on Saturday, January 29th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM ★
 
The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is turned on its side in Words Don't Mean Much, Senon Williams’ new book of aphoristic phrasing. Far fewer words are needed to create an illuminating image in the mind’s eye, conjuring immediate multi-sensory experiences.
 
This book of poems is derived from the text in Williams’ ink on paper drawings, a sampling of which are pictured at left. The drawings are textual extractions and gather momentum within the book, exhibiting great attention to materials and craftsmanship. Every detail, from select paper to classic typeface, has been considered. An object, not unlike a sculpture, can be viewed from all sides, handled— and leafed through in the case of this book—front to back, back to front, or randomly opened. Words Don't Mean Much is a small pocket book, easy to conceal. A book to keep all to yourself or share int4mately.
 
Native to Los Angeles, Senon Williams is a lifelong visual artist and musician. His longtime study of economy with words and multiple meanings centers on the desire to create glimpses into the inherent human struggle, both ancient and contemporary. Williams’ work finds space in the natural—exposing outstanding and devastating stages of human evolution.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 11, 2022

Book of the Day > Richard Mosse: Displaced

● Purchase ● The Fondazione MAST presents the catalogue of the first-ever anthological exhibition of Irish artist Richard Mosse.
 
From his early photographs in Iraq, on the US-Mexico border and in the Balkans to the images of the Infra project taken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from the imposing Heat Maps of refugee camps on the route to Europe to his most recent works shot in the Amazon rainforest, Mosse explores the possibilities of documentary photography today, between the recording of reality and art.
 
116 large-format photographs of great visual impact are accompanied by the critical essay of the exhibition’s curator Urs Stahel and by the contributions of Michael J. Kavanagh, reporting on Congo and Central Africa since 2004 for the Economist, Bloomberg News, the New York Times, BBC, among many other outlets; Christian Viveros-Fauné, curator-at-large at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum; and Ivo Quaranta, professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Bologna.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 08, 2022

Book of the Day > Armando Alleyne: A Few of My Favorites

● Purchase ● The first book on the New York painter’s eclectic iconography of jazz musicians, boxers and friends
 
With bright patches of acrylic paint and carefully placed found ephemera, New York–based artist Armando Alleyne’s (born 1959) multimedia portraits are immediately eye-catching, drawing viewers in to inspect and appreciate the layers of meaning collaged on top of one another. Alleyne’s renditions of jazz musicians, Afro-Latino singers, and his own family members and acquaintances are rife with color and contemporary iconography as well as references to the artist’s own life. Series such as Shelter Blues reflect on Alleyne’s experiences of homelessness, while Maria’s Song pays homage to his late sister through a pantheon of religious imagery. This volume is the first book on Alleyne, highlighting a lifetime of work alongside snapshots and personal anecdotes.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 07, 2022

Book of the Day > Jackie Nickerson: Salvage

● Purchase ● Portraits that explore how environmental and economic circumstances shape people’s lives
 
American-born British artist Jackie Nickerson (born 1960) began photographing Zimbabwean farmworkers in 1996. Her first series of these portraits served to change the perception that those who work in African agriculture are disempowered, unmodern people by highlighting their individual personalities through their handmade clothing. Ever since, she has continued in the vein of portraiture as a tool for social awareness, with a particular emphasis on global labor practices and agriculture. Her recent series Salvage interrogates the homogeneity of the artistic conventions, such as balance, likeness, proportion and scale, that characterize the portrait genre. In contrast to these expectations, Nickerson’s photography engages both her subjects and her viewers with light, airy color palettes and nontraditional framing, sometimes obscuring her sitters’ faces to imply anonymity within a larger system or otherwise photographing them from a low angle to emphasize their authority within the image’s frame.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 06, 2022

Book of the Day > Helmut Newton. Legacy

● Purchase ● Virtually unparalleled in scope and spanning more than five decades, the photography of visionary Helmut Newton (1920–2004) reached millions through publication in magazines like Vogue and Elle. His oeuvre transcended genres, bringing elegance, style, and voyeurism to fashion, portrait, and glamour photography through a body of work that remains as inimitable as it is unrivaled. Having mastered the art of fashion photography early in his career, Newton’s shoots invariably went beyond standard practice, blurring the lines between reality and illusion. Newton’s clear aesthetic pervades all areas of his work, particularly fashion, portraiture, and nude photography. Women take center stage – with subjects such as Catherine Deneuve, Liz Taylor, and Charlotte Rampling. Moving beyond traditional narrative approaches, Newton’s fashion photography is imbued not only with luxurious elegance and subtle seduction, but also cultural references and a surprising sense of humor.
 
During the 1990s, Newton shot for the German, American, Italian, French, and Russian editions of Vogue, primarily in and around Monte Carlo where he was living from 1981 onwards. Transforming locations like his own garage into starkly contrasting or particularly minimalist theatrical stages, Newton would often portray the eccentric lives of the beautiful and rich, full of eroticism and elegance, in unconventional scenarios. He made use of and simultaneously questioned visual clichés, at times tinged with self-irony or mockery, but always full of empathy.
Book of the Day Posted Jan 04, 2022

Book of the Day > Reversing Into The Future: New Wave Graphics 1977–1990

● Purchase ● Packed with exclusive artworks and expert texts, this is the comprehensive guide to the unforgettable period of New Wave. Having witnessed an emerging generation of music buyers who’d been energized by punk, major record labels and independents alike went in search of sounds and visions that captured something of the energy and cheeky attitude of punk, while ignoring its political edge. New Wave was embraced by the mainstream music and entertainment industries and used to promote artists who rejected the anti-consumerist, anti-materialistic, black-and-white nihilism of the original punk movement in favor of a more optimistic, humorous and colorful present refracted through the past. In doing so, and as this book illustrates, the New Wave followed Marshall McLuhan’s dictum that ‘we drive boldly into the future with our eyes fixed firmly on the rear-view mirror’. New Wave artists rejected punk’s satirical, parodic and irreverent treatment of rock ’n’ roll’s original, iconic imagery preferring to display it reverently or referenced with love and affection.
 
Reversing Into The Future: New Wave Graphics 1977–1990 includes graphic designs for, among others, The B52s, Boomtown Rats, Devo, Duran Duran, The Cars, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, XTC, Cyndi Lauper, The Police, Simple Minds, Gary Numan, Japan, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Go-Gos, Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, Simple Minds, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and many more. Graphic artists featured include Martyn Atkins, Barney Bubbles, Chris Morton, Malcolm Garrett, Alex McDowell, Tony Wright, Martin Kaye for the Paradiso, X3 Posters, DEVO Inc., Neville Brody, The Designers Republic, Russell Mills and more.
 
A collectable item itself, the book is beautifully produced with front and back cover artwork by world-renowned designers Malcolm Garrett and Chip Kidd. Alongside a vast array of original artworks and graphics from the New Wave period, the book includes text contributions from recognized and respected commentators, critics and designers from the UK, US and Australia. Documenting the incredible impact of New Wave, this is the ideal book for die-hard music fans and graphic design aficionados alike.
Book of the Day Posted Dec 31, 2021

Book of the Day > Brendan Lott: Safer At Home

● Purchase ● Staying home day and night with a desire to remain creative during the quarantine, Lott began shooting photographs from his DTLA loft of the residential building across the street. He became entranced with peeking into the private lives of others during the pandemic, capturing their behavior and activities in candid moments. These images are not portraits and he avoids showing complete faces. They are moments in time; a time of great uncertainty and fear. The final images simply reveal a knee, an edge of the face or just a headless body with the face obscured by architecture, plants, furniture or props. Metaphorically, Lott challenges the notion of the face being the site of our individuality, thus these faceless bodies articulate the evacuation of individual selves in the age of digital information.
 
Lott entitles the series Safer at Home, referencing the nurturing environment that we create for ourselves with personal tastes revealed in the décor, arrangement of furniture, accessories and lighting. However, there is an ominous feeling within each of these images. As noted by critic Daniel Coffeen, “What we learn from seeing these images is that there is no longer any safety at home for we are all evacuated, turned inside out, atomized within the network, all these isolated nodes gravitating towards the same center. The line that would separate a screen from a window has been erased. We no longer peer through windows; we view screens. The image is no longer over there or up on the screen, in theaters, or even on TVs. The image is right here. It's everywhere. It's us.”
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