Book of the Day Posted Oct 23, 2019

Book of the Day > The New Woman's Survival Catalog

Book of the Day > The New Woman's Survival Catalog. Published by Primary Information. "Originally published in 1973, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog is a seminal survey of the second-wave feminist effort across the US. Edited by Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie in just five months, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog makes a nod to Stewart Brand’s influential Whole Earth Catalog, mapping a vast network of feminist alternative cultural activity in the 1970s. Grimstad and Rennie set out on a two-month road trip in the summer of 1973, meeting and interviewing a range of organizations and individuals, and gathering vital information on everything from arts groups to bookstores and independent presses, health, parenting and rape crisis centers and educational, legal and financial resources. 'These projects express a rejection of the values of existing institutional structures,” Grimstad and Rennie wrote, “and, unlike the hip male counterculture, represent an active attempt to reshape culture through changing values and consciousness.' Arranged in themed sections on art, communications, work and money, child care, self-help, self-defense and activism, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog provides crucial insight into feminist initiatives and activism nationwide during the Women’s Movement. It includes a “Making the Book” section that details the publication’s production."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 22, 2019

Book of the Day > LaToya Ruby Frazier

Book of the Day > LaToya Ruby Frazier. Published by Mousse Publishing. "In my photographs, I make social commentary about urgent issues I see in the communities or places I’m in. I use them as a platform to advocate for social justice and as a means to create visibility for people who are on the margins, who are deemed “unworthy”: the poor, the elderly, anyone who is other, anyone who doesn’t have a voice. I create depictions of their humanity that call for equity. That is what is dear to my practice and my position as an artist."—LaToya Ruby Frazier  "Since the early 2000s LaToya Ruby Frazier has developed a documentary practice that is both personal and engaged with the social, political, and economic realities of the United States. For her exhibition at Mudam, Frazier presents the emblematic photographic series The Notion of Family, developed between 2001 and 2014 around three generations of women – her grandmother, mother and herself – witnessing the decline of her hometown of Braddock, the former steel capital of the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that would subsequently become a ghost town, with two more recent bodies of work that continue her focus on the working classes and the interaction between personal life and sociopolitical issues. On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford (2017) is the outcome of a close collaboration with Sandra Gould Ford, a photographer and writer who was employed in the steel industry of Pittsburgh and who documented life in factories that were closing down; Et des terrils un arbre s’élèvera (2016-2017), is the result of an ambitious project near Mons, in Borinage Belgium, created in collaboration with former miners and their families. This publication, published on the occasion of her show, features works from the three series; a conversazione between the artist, Christophe Gallois, and Claire Tenu; and an essay by Elvan Zabunyan."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 20, 2019

Book of the Day > Pot Dealer: Vol. 1 by Ben Sanders

Book of the Day > Pot Dealer Vol. 1 by Ben Sanders. Published by Ben Sanders. A catalog of 160 painted pots made between 2014-2018.

Book of the Day Posted Oct 18, 2019

Book of the day and book signing tomorrow, 4-6!> Magdalena Suarez Frimkess

Book of the day and book signing tomorrow, 4-6! Please join us to celebrate this utterly delightful work > Magdalena Suarez Frimkess. Published by @southwillard. “"This is the first book on the ceramicist Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Born in 1929, the Venezuelan-born, Venice, California-based artist is just now getting the recognition she deserves, with her work finding its way into the collections of LACMA and The Hammer Museum. Her unique approach to ceramics - incorporating cartoon characters such as Felix the Cat, Popeye, Olive Oyl, Goofy, and Betty Boop as well as more traditional motifs such as landscapes, birds, and flowers - has charmed a younger generation of artists such as Jonas Wood, Shio Kusaka, Mark Grotjahn, Lesley Vance, and Ricky Swallow - who contributes an essay here. This lovely catalogue offers a broad range of the colorful autobiographical pieces Magdalena Suarez Frimkess has produced over her long and varied career.” Book signing at Arcana 10/19, 4-6. All events at Arcana are free, open to everyone, and feature books, wine, and fellow enthusiasts.
 
 
Book of the Day Posted Oct 17, 2019

Book of the Day > French Fashion: Women & The First World War

Book of the Day > French Fashion: Women & The First World War. Published by Yale University Press. "An unprecedented examination of the impact of fashion on society in France throughout the Great War. This fascinating exploration of French women’s fashion during World War I is the first in-depth consideration of the role that fashion played in the upheaval of French society between 1914 and 1918. As the fashion industry—the second largest industry in the country—mobilized to help the war effort, Parisian couture houses introduced new styles, aggressively disseminated information through magazines, and strengthened their propaganda efforts overseas. Women of all social classes adapted their garments to the wartime lifestyle, and practicality was increasingly introduced in the form of pockets and 'sportswear' textiles like jersey. While women were heralded for contributing to the war effort, the clothes they wore while doing so often provoked debates, particularly when their attire was seen as too masculine or militaristic. With focused studies of wartime garments such as skirt suits, nurse’s uniforms, work overalls, and mourning clothes, this volume brings to life the passionate debates that roiled the French fashion industry and reveals the extent to which fashion was a hotly contested topic and a barometer for social tensions throughout this tumultuous era."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 16, 2019

Book of the Day > Francois Halard: A Visual Diary

Book of the Day > Francois Halard: A Visual Diary. Published by Rizzoli. "Francois Halard's unique photographic sensibility--old-world elegant and bohemian, accessible and personal--is unmistakable. Each image is imbued with the intimate knowledge of design history, each story a lesson in a master's point of view. This book is a continuation of his last volume of gorgeous photography of grand interiors, artists' studios, and architectural pilgrimage sites. Each story's subject matter is not just a personal passion of the photographer, but also an indispensable chapter in design history: Philip Johnson and Charles James's de Menil House, Giorgio Morandi's studio, Rick Owens's radical Paris apartment, Eileen Gray's recently restored modernist home on the French coast, Dries Van Noten's verdant garden and home, the home and studio of Louise Bourgeois in New York, and many more. Like his first book, Francois Halard: A Photographic Life will be a coveted, indispensable must-have visual resource for all lovers of interiors, glamour, and style."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 10, 2019

Book of the Day > Dennis Stock: California Trip

Book of the Day > Dennis Stock: California Trip. Published by Anthology. "In 1968, Magnum photographer Dennis Stock took a five-week road trip along the California highways, documenting the height of the counterculture hippie scene. These black and white photos were compiled to create California Trip, originally published in 1970, and became an emblem of the free love movement that continued to inspire throughout the decades. In print for the first time since its 1970 publication, California Trip is a faithful reproduction of Stock’s timeless work."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 09, 2019

Book of the Day > Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe

Book of the Day > Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe. Published by University of Chicago with John Michael Kohler Arts Center. "Recent years have seen an enormous surge of interest in fiber arts, with works made of thread on display in art museums around the world. But this art form only began to transcend its origins as a humble craft in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that artists used the fiber arts to build critical practices that challenged the definitions of painting, drawing, and sculpture. One of those artists was Lenore Tawney (1907–2007). Raised and trained in Chicago before she moved to New York, Tawney had a storied career. She was known for employing an ancient Peruvian gauze weave technique to create a painterly effect that appeared to float in space rather than cling to the wall, as well as for being one of the first artists to blend sculptural techniques with weaving practices and, in the process, pioneered a new direction in fiber art. Despite her prominence on the New York art scene, however, she has only recently begun to receive her due from the greater art world. Accompanying a retrospective at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, this catalog features a comprehensive biography of Tawney, additional essays on her work, and two hundred full-color illustrations, making it of interest to contemporary artists, art historians, and the growing audience for fiber art."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 08, 2019

Book of the Day > Stephen Gill: The Pillar

Book of the Day > Stephen Gill: The Pillar. Published by Nobody. "The landscape that surrounds my home in Sweden can be misleading. The bird activity it holds is diluted and disguised by the vast flat open land and sky that offers an impression of little going on. In January 2015, with an inkling of bird activity being more prominent than at first met my eyes, I decided to try to pull them out of the sky. I set up an 8cm diameter stage in the form of a wooden pillar that was around one and half meters in height, and opposite it another the same on which I mounted a camera that was triggered by motion. I visited the camera a few days later and, to my surprise, it had worked. The pillar somehow managed to funnel the birds from the sky by offering them a place to rest, feed, nurse their young, and observe. I was captivated immediately. The images were often unsettled, the birds awkward like contortionists, completely off-beat and the shapes and soft lines created were so arresting. From my kitchen window the pillar could be seen in the distance like a matchstick in the flat distance. My absence in turn somehow allowed a greater mental presence during the making of the work. I was frequently there though only in my mind, wondering what was happening at that very moment as I sat on a local train, or went about my daily routine. Even when I was out of the country I would be imagining the activity on the stage."
Book of the Day Posted Oct 06, 2019

Book of the Day > Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda

Book of the Day > Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda. Published by Fuel. “Throughout the Soviet period the USSR waged war against religion of all denominations. This book is the first to tell this story through the vivid propaganda used against ‘the opium of the people’, from immediately after the 1917 revolution to the eventual fall of communism in 1991. Drawing on the early Soviet atheist magazines Godless and Godless at the Machine, and post-war posters by Communist Party publishers, author Roland Elliott Brown presents an unsettling tour of atheist ideology in the USSR. Here are uncanny, imaginative, and downright blasphemous visions from the very guts of the Soviet atheist apparatus: sinister priests rub shoulders with cross-bearing colonial torturers, greedy mullahs, a cyclopean Jehovah, and a crypto-fascist Jesus; Russian cosmonauts mock God from space while vigilant border guards nab western Bible smugglers.”

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