Book of the Day Posted Oct 14, 2021

Book of the Day > Wes Lang: Everything

● Purchase ● A definitive and long overdue monograph revealing the extraordinarily prolific career of the American artist Wes Lang, whose frenetic and manic paintings bring together ideas and icons mined from a post-pop American landscape.
 
In the Wes Lang universe, recurring figures and symbols—horses, reapers, skulls, Native American chiefs, even nods to his favorite painters, country and jazz musicians—serve as emblems in one way or another for freedom and inspiration. References to the Tao Te Ching and the lectures of Ram Dass are scattered throughout the work, revealing a central ethos that underlies the artist’s complex iconography. The repetition of these sometimes paradoxical images and phrases, motifs and mantras, gives Lang’s work a ritualistic aspect seemingly at odds with his eclectic and spontaneous style.
 
Introduced with an exploratory essay by the critic Arty Nelson, the book draws on more than 25 years’ worth of material, from stark paintings on wood that formed the artist's first exhibition to richly layered oil paintings exhibited in Paris in 2020, and from unpublished pencil drawings to imagery made iconic by his enigmatic commercial collaborations. Oversized and with pull-out gatefold pages, the book is testament to the scope and richness of Lang's work: expansive in its iconography, deceptively intimate in its detail, and juxtaposing a textured, painterly style with a playful acceptance of the diversity of his own influences.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 13, 2021

Book of the Day > Auto Erotica

● Purchase ● A car book like no other, Auto Erotica offers a nostalgic look at vintage cars through the literature, leaflets and pamphlets that sold them to us
 
Over the course of its 240 pages, Auto Erotica covers the gamut of motoring in Britain during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s through rare ephemeral booklets full of unusual graphic ideas and concepts. Their fabulous photography, dazzling color charts, daring typography, strange foldouts and inspiring styles symbolize the automobile aspirations of generations of Britons.
 
Assembled by nostalgia enthusiast Jonny Trunk—author of The Music Library and Own Label—the book is also packed full of era-defining classic cars, from those we love to those we can’t remember. Expect fast Fords, the XJS, the TR8, MGs, Minis, Maxis, Renaults, Beemers, VWs, Vivas, Citroëns, DeLoreans and a whole lot more: amazing motorcars from the past, and even some from the future, as you've never seen them before.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 12, 2021

Book of the Day > Apocalypse Now: The Lost Photo Archive

● Purchase ● Hired in 1976 by Francis Ford Coppola as the still photographer for his masterpiece Apocalypse Now, Chas Gerretsen’s private archive of hundreds of photographs propels readers immediately into the chaos and drama surrounding one of the most important movies ever made.
 
Gerretsen was a renowned freelance photographer who had previously worked in Vietnam when he got the call from Coppola, who was looking for a combat photographer for a war movie. Given unprecedented access to the film’s stars, extras, crew, and legendary behind-the-scenes drama he spent six months in the Philippines, shooting thousands of images. Culled from that archive, these full-color photographs offer an intimate glimpse of the turmoil and excitement of a Hollywood spectacle rising out of the unpredictable climate of the Philippine rainforest. Capturing the star power of Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, and Dennis Hopper, as well as the sprawling sets, he takes us into the beauty of the Southeast Asian jungle and shows us how its inhabitants were incorporated into the filming. Throughout the book, Gerretsen’s astute reflections of his experience on set are as fascinating as his photography. While Apocalypse Now remains one of the most critically acclaimed movies of all time, the making of the film is equally legendary. Nearly fifty years later, Gerretsen’s photographs remind us of Coppola’s artistic achievements and of a pivotal era in American cultural history.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 08, 2021

Book of the Day > Master of the Midcentury: The Architecture of William F. Cody

● Purchase ● Of the architects who made Palm Springs a crucible of midcentury American modernism, William F. Cody (1916-1978) was one of the most prolific, diverse, and iconic. Directing a practice ranging from residences to commercial centers and industrial complexes to master plans, Cody’s designs are so recognizable that they provide visual shorthand for what is widely hailed as “Desert Modern.” While his architecture was disciplined and technically innovative, Cody did not practice an austere modernism; he imbued in his projects a love for social spaces, rich with patterns, texture, color, and art.
 
Though the majority of Cody’s built work was concentrated in California and Arizona, he had commissions in other western states, Hawaii, Mexico, Honduras, and Cuba. From icons like the Del Marcos Hotel (1946), to inventive country clubs like the Eldorado (1957), to houses for celebrities (Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney), Cody’s projects defined the emerging West Coast lifestyle that combined luxury, leisure, and experimental design. Cody also pushed the boundaries of engineering, with beams and roof slabs so thin that his buildings seemed to defy gravity.
 
Master of the Midcentury is the first monograph devoted to Cody, authored by the team that curated the acclaimed exhibition Fast Forward: The Architecture of William F. Cody at the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles: his daughter, Cathy Cody, design historian Jo Lauria, and architectural historian Don Choi. Replete with photographs of extant and now-lost structures, as well as masterful color renderings and drawings for architectural commissions and plans for vanguard building systems, Master of the Midcentury is the authoritative resource on Cody.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 07, 2021

Book of the Day > Land of Ibeji

● Purchase ● Here, seeing double is normal.
 
Sanne De Wilde and Bénédicte Kurzen traveled to Yoruba country in Nigeria, where the rate of twin births is ten times higher than elsewhere — a fact that is either celebrated with mythical fervor or condemned. While tracking this history, the photographers created richly intriguing, intensely colorful portraits of twins. They played with the concept of doubling to stage an imaginative photographic story, making use of double apertures, double exposures, reflections, and color filters. With these inventive pictorial processes, the two artists produce magical double portraits.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 06, 2021

Book of the Day > Dazed: 30 Years Confused

● Purchase ● Celebrating 30 years of Dazed’s boundary-pushing storytelling at the forefront of youth culture, this book reveals the past, present, and future of Dazed through its bold cover designs and manifesto-like headlines.
 
In 1991, the first issue of Dazed & Confused was released as a single A2 foldout newsprint by a then 20-year-old Jefferson Hack and the photographer Rankin. Now, 30 years later, what began as a print magazine has gone on to provoke a change in consciousness, becoming a vital cultural manifesto for today. Created for an audience that wants to be both informed and inspired to imagine, its radical approach to publishing means that Dazed is still at the forefront of youth culture today.
 
Split into ten chapters—taken from the magazine’s most memorable cover lines—this book explores how these early manifestos reflect the magazine’s ethos today. Time-traveling from the ’90s to now, a new generation of image makers sit side by side with archival materials to showcase how Dazed has always interpreted celebrity through its own boundary-pushing lens: from Alexander McQueen and David Bowie’s first official, recorded conversation and the designer’s “Fashion-Able?” cover, to a rare appearance and guest-edit by Chelsea Manning, to rapper Young Thug shot by Harley Weir.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 05, 2021

Book of the Day > Marie Tomanova: New York New York

● Purchase ● Vibrant portraits of a new generation of Americans in the throes of cultural transformation
 
New York–based Czech photographer Marie Tomanova (born 1984) follows her 2019 book Young American with a second volume of color portraits of the noughties generation in New York City, paying particular attention to the diverse faces of America’s future and their process of vitally reshaping notions of gender, society and culture. Captivating and sincere, her diaristic work is imbued with the vitality and raw spirit of American youth. Her subjects are photographed at parties, art openings, parks and in apartments with their faces filling the majority of the image frames. They share an intimate gaze that stares directly back at the lens, framed by a variety of hair, makeup, piercings and skin tones.
 
Tomanova grew up in the Czech Republic and since moving to the United States in 2010 she has used photography to capture her feelings of displacement and evolving sense of belonging in America. Taken together, Tomanova’s series of self-portraits and youth photography reflect her introspective look into issues of identity and isolation.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 02, 2021

Book of the Day > American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams

● Purchase ● In this expansive monograph, Robert Adams’s compelling and provocative photographs explore the profound questions of our responsibility to the land and the moral dilemmas of progress. Working in Colorado, California, and Oregon from 1965 to 2015, Adams photographed suburban sprawl, strip malls, highways, homes, and the land itself, seeking to reveal both the ravages we have inflicted on the land and its underlying, enduring beauty. His photographs of the western American landscape are imbued with a sense of the sacred. Adams transforms “the silence of light” he sees on the prairie, in the woods, and by the ocean into pictures that not only capture that beauty but can also question our own silent complicity in its desecration by consumerism, industrialization, and the lack of environmental stewardship. This substantial body of work—passionate but restrained, respectful but outraged—is united by the reverential way Adams looks at the world around him, and the almost palpable silence that permeates his art.
Book of the Day Posted Oct 01, 2021

Book of the Day > Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine

● Purchase ● A rich reconsideration of a short-lived but visionary voice in twentieth-century American painting and his enduring relevance
 
Bob Thompson (1937–1966) came to critical acclaim in the late 1950s for paintings of unparalleled figurative complexity and chromatic intensity. Thompson drew upon the Western art-historical canon to formulate a highly personal, expressive language. Tracing the African American artist’s prolific, yet tragically brief, transatlantic career, this volume examines Thompson’s outlier status and pays close attention to his sustained engagements with themes of community, visibility, and justice. As the contributors contextualize the artist’s ambitions and his unique creative process, they reposition Thompson as a predecessor to contemporary artists such as Kerry James Marshall and Kehinde Wiley. Featuring an array of artwork, and never-before-published poems and archival materials, this study situates Thompson’s extraordinary output within ongoing dialogues about the politics of representation.
Book of the Day Posted Sep 29, 2021

Book of the Day > Mina Stone: Lemon, Love & Olive Oil

● Purchase ● Growing up in a close-knit Greek-American household, Mina Stone learned to cook from her Yiayia, who taught her that food doesn’t have to be complicated to be delicious—and that almost any dish can be improved with judicious amounts of lemon, olive oil, and salt. In this deeply personal cookbook, Stone celebrates her grandmother and the other influences that have shaped her life, her career, and her culinary tastes and expertise. Lemon, Love & Olive Oil weaves together more than 80 Mediterranean-style dishes with the stories that inspired them.
 
Stone offers home cooks a taste of her heritage with healthy, flavorful, and uncomplicated dishes such as Syrian Bulgur and Yogurt with Brown Butter Pine Nuts; Persian Figs with Cardamom and Rosewater; Baby Lettuces with Toasted Sesame Seeds, Mint, and Meyer Lemon Yogurt; and Braised Chickpeas with Orange Zest and Garlic Bread Crumbs. These recipes use fresh, flavorful ingredients to create elegantly simple dishes, complemented by beautiful, minimalist photography and original art throughout.
 
A fresh and unconventional fusion of art and food, Lemon, Love & Olive Oil is an engaging (and delicious!) cultural and culinary tour, all complimented by the design of world-renowned artist Urs Fischer.
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