Book of the Day Posted Apr 17, 2021

Book of the Day > For Cats Only

● Purchase ● Feline architectures: a fun and affordable picture-book of cats with their cat trees
 
Every cat owner knows the frustration of shelling out a considerable amount of money for a cat tree or scratching post only to find that their feline family member prefers to sleep in the box the item came in. Some lucky cat owners also know the unexpected delight that comes from seeing cats use the accessories made just for them, the strange satisfaction of catching their kitty relaxing on their kitty-sized furniture.
 
Against stylish pastel backdrops, Swiss photographer Pascale Weber poses her feline subjects on a variety of different cat-specific pieces, lounging on the roof of a fuzzy ice cream truck and balancing atop a three-pronged scratching post that resembles a cactus. Her photography series captures the undeniable charm of cats on their best behavior while also providing a tongue-in-check echo of more serious forms of design. The artfulness of each cat tree mirrors the contemporary aesthetic trends of human-sized architecture and sculpture: multifaceted, functional and ultimately representative of those who utilize such structures. Each cat presents their home just as proudly as a person might in this surprising combination of art and animal photography, perfect for cat lovers and art enthusiasts alike.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 16, 2021

Book of the Day > The Essential Louis Kahn

● Purchase ● This photographic tour of every one of the buildings designed solely by Louis Kahn represents the architect’s greatest accomplishments.
 
This book focuses on over twenty buildings that were designed solely by Louis Kahn. From his native city of Philadelphia to the heart of Bangladesh, Kahn’s architecture reflected his fascination with science, mathematics, history, and nature. Striking new interior and exterior photographs by esteemed architectural photographer Cemal Emden reveal the characteristic features of Kahn’s aesthetic: juxtaposed materials, repetition of line and shape and geometric precision. Also evident is the way Kahn’s designs flourish in a variety of settings–religious, governmental, educational, and residential. The book gives close attention to Kahn’s most iconic buildings, including Erdman Hall at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania; the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad; the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka, Bangladesh; and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as a cluster of residences he designed in the Philadelphia area. Chapter openers written by architecture professor Caroline Maniaque, an introduction by academic Jale Erzen and an extensive chronology by academic Zekiye Abali, as well as a selection of Kahn’s most insightful statements complete this book, which allows for a rich understanding of Kahn’s architectural ingenuity.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 14, 2021

Book of the Day > A Time of Youth: San Francisco, 1966–1967

● Purchase ● A year before 1967's famed Summer of Love, documentary photographer William Gedney set out for San Francisco on a Guggenheim Fellowship to record “aspects of our culture which I believe significant and which I hope will become, in time, part of the visual record of American history.” A Time of Youth brings together eighty-seven of the more than two thousand photographs Gedney took in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood between October 1966 and January 1967. In these photographs Gedney documents the restless and intertwined lives of the disenchanted youth who flocked to what became the epicenter of 1960s counterculture. Gedney lived among these young people in their communal homes, where he captured the intimate and varied contours of everyday life: solitude and companionship, joyous celebration and somber quiet, cramped rooms and spacious parks, recreation and contemplation. In these images Gedney presents a portrait of a San Francisco counterculture that complicates popular depictions of late 1960s youth as carefree flower children. The book also includes facsimiles of handwritten descriptions of the scenes Gedney photographed, his thoughts on organizing the book, and other ephemera.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 13, 2021

Book of the Day > Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And

● Purchase ● Four decades of multimedia exploits in race, art politics and subjectivity: a long-overdue survey on conceptual performance artist Lorraine O’Grady
 
Conceptual performance artist Lorraine O'Grady burst into the contemporary art world in 1980 dressed in a gown made of 180 pairs of white gloves and wielding a chrysanthemum-studded whip. For the next three years, O’Grady documented her exploits as this incendiary fictional persona, visiting gallery openings and providing critiques of the racial politics at play in the New York art scene. The resulting series, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, was merely the beginning of a long career of avant-garde work that would continue to build upon O’Grady’s conceptions of self and subjectivity as seen from the perspective of a Black woman artist. This survey of O’Grady’s work spans four decades of her career and features nearly all of her major projects, as well as Announcement, the opening series of a new performance piece seven years in the making. Contextualized by an extensive timeline with letters, journal entries and interviews, Both/And provides a long-overdue close examination of O’Grady’s artistic and intellectual ambitions.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 09, 2021

Book of the Day > Joseph Rodriguez LAPD 1994

● Purchase ● In the mid-nineties, the LAPD was in search of a public image make-over after the Rodney King uprisings. The City Charter was reformed by increasing civilian oversight of the LAPD, the militant police chief of the moment, Daryl Gates, was forced to resign and Willie Williams became the first African-American chief of the department. I was no stranger to this type of assignment. At that time I had already published two books, Spanish Harlem and East Side Stories, which depicted life in impoverished neighborhoods. Covering LAPD gave me a chance to show how police operated in marginalized communities, and how those communities were affected by individual cops and the department as a whole.
 
As part of these efforts, the LAPD gave photographer Joseph Rodriguez unprecedented access to document the officers in the field for The New York Times, hoping to give the public an image of a “kinder, gentler cop”, as the headline put it. For weeks, he immersed himself in the daily workings of the 77th Street, Pacific and Rampart Divisions. Four years after Rodriguez rode along with Rampart officers, the station became notorious when the biggest scandal in LAPD history erupted in an astonishing spectacle of officer corruption that included the murder of a fellow cop, a bank robbery, unprovoked shootings of alleged gang members, drugs stolen from the evidence room, and other crimes.
 
In 2020, the year of Black Lives Matter, a generation after these photos were taken, new uprisings demand reform yet again and the same questions about policing – what are they for, who do they serve, and who do they protect – shape the public discussion.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 08, 2021

Book of the Day > Kristin Bedford: Cruise Night

● Purchase ● Scenes from the Mexican American lowrider life: a clothbound photobook documenting a vibrant LA car culture
 
Known for her quiet portraits of American cultural movements, Los Angeles–based photographer Kristin Bedford’s new work, Cruise Night, is an intimate and unstaged exploration of Los Angeles’ Mexican American lowrider car culture.
 
From 2014 to 2019 Bedford attended hundreds of lowrider cruise nights, car shows, quinceañeras, weddings and funerals. Her images offer a new visual narrative around the lowrider tradition and invite outsiders to question prevalent societal stereotypes surrounding this urban Mexican American culture. Bedford’s photos explore the nuances of cars as mobile canvases and the legendary community that creates them.
 
With bright color photography and a unique female vantage point, Cruise Night is an original look at a prolific American movement set against the Los Angeles cityscape.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 07, 2021

Book of the Day > Age Of Collage 3: Contemporary Collage In Modern Art

● Purchase ● Dive into an art form existing at the intersection of design, commerce, and abstract expression.
 
Cut, paste, create: while collage was conceived in the early 1900's, it seems to be the perfect form of expression for the 21st-century, with all its juxtapositions, eclecticism, and strange bedfellows. In our present age of collage, the simple act of mixing together different elements allows us to question our reality and make new worlds.
 
The Age of Collage showcases a new crop of artistic vanguards advancing the medium’s possibilities, piece-by-piece. Equipped with a craft knife, paintbrush, stylus, scissors, or tablet, a collage artist’s toolkit is as varied as their creations and this book brings their work back to the paper page.
 
From the poignant and provocative to the comic and curious, The Age of Collage features the creations of more than 60 artists. Packed with visuals and a number of in-depth profiles revealing what drives the hands behind the pieces, this comprehensive volume is a celebration of the enduring power of collage.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 06, 2021

Book of the Day > The Spanish Style House: From Enchanted Andalusia to the California Dream

● Purchase ● Luminous new photography showcases contemporary and historic homes in the beloved Spanish Style in Southern California, while offering, as well, a rare look at the original inspirations to the style, born in Andalusia, Spain.
 
The great appeal of Spanish Style homes lies in their aura of romance and drama, a sense of story, of magic, as well as in their very comfortable and engaging proportions and the great livability of the interior spaces. Deep shadow, arched doorways, trickling courtyard fountains, climbing bougainvillea on wrought-iron window grilles, wood-beamed ceilings, and white plaster walls are all hallmarks of the style. Here, through a celebration of contemporary and historic homes in Southern California, as well as existing historic precedents in Andalusia, Spain--most notably the intricately detailed Casa de Pilatos in Seville and the Alhambra of Granada--The Spanish Style House presents the definitive picture of the style as it exists today.
 
Featured homes include the George Washington Smith-designed Casa Blanca (1928)--a fantasy made real in stone and stucco replete with the romance of old Morocco in its horseshoe arches, domes, and evocative tile murals--and a Marc Appleton-designed beach house (2007) in Del Mar, California, which is a dream on the sea and an eloquent testament to the virtues of the style for today.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 02, 2021

Book of the Day > Alice Neel: People Come First

● Purchase ● "For me, people come first," Alice Neel (1900–1984) declared in 1950. "I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being." This ambitious publication surveys Neel's nearly 70-year career through the lens of her radical humanism. Remarkable portraits of victims of the Great Depression, fellow residents of Spanish Harlem, leaders of political organizations, queer artists, visibly pregnant women, and members of New York's global diaspora reveal that Neel viewed humanism as both a political and philosophical ideal. In addition to these paintings of famous and unknown sitters, the more than 100 works highlighted include Neel's emotionally charged cityscapes and still lifes as well as the artist's erotic pastels and watercolors. Essays tackle Neel's portrayal of LGBTQ subjects; her unique aesthetic language, which merged abstraction and figuration; and her commitment to progressive politics, civil rights, feminism, and racial diversity. The authors also explore Neel's highly personal preoccupations with death, illness, and motherhood while reasserting her place in the broader cultural history of the 20th century.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 01, 2021

Book of the Day > The Chemarts Cookbook

● Purchase ● Inspiration for Material Enthusiasts
 
How can we make flexible, transparent wood-based materials? What kinds of materials can we derive from trees, while still respecting the preciousness of nature? Could the innovative use of renewable cellulosic materials change our material world?
 
The CHEMARTS Cookbook offers both simple and more advanced ideas and recipes for hands-on experiments with wood-based materials. The book showcases interesting results, focusing on raw materials that are processed either chemically or mechanically from trees or other plants: cellulose fibres, micro- or nano-structured fibrils, cellulose derivatives, lignin, bark, and wood extractives.
 
Find inspiration, test our recipes at home, in workshops or chemistry labs, and develop your own experiments! Have fun!
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