Book of the day > Non Stop Poetry: The Zines of Mark Mark Gonzales. 2000 copies published by Printed Matter in 2014 and now out-of-print. Editors: Philip Aarons and Emma Reeves with contributions from Kim Gordon, Rita Ackermann, Maurizio Cattelan, Cameron Jamie, Harmony Korine, Aaron Rose, Steven Salardino, Tom Sachs, Jocko Weyland, and others. “Non Stop Poetry: The Zines of Mark Gonzales is a comprehensive presentation of the zines made by Gonzales from the early-’90s to the present day. Gonzales, thought by many to be the greatest skateboarder of all time, is revealed by this significant book to deserve equal recognition as an artist and poet. His extraordinary production of more than 145 zines (the exact number is unknown since Gonzales kept no records of his output), is a remarkable artistic achievement worthy of the careful analysis and documentation provided by this book. Gonzales zines are made spontaneously using an argot all his own and demonstrate a remarkable gift for verse and drawing. Misshapen, hastily scribbled and collaged into brilliantly drawn and colored ephemeral pamphlets, these handmade zines continue a notable tradition of artist-made publications from Ed Ruscha to Raymond Pettibon.

Produced in extremely limited numbers, Gonzales’ zines were almost exclusively distributed outside traditional channels. Most were generously given away or mailed to friends reminiscent of the distribution of Wallace Berman’s Semina. If they did find their way to stores such as Printed Matter in New York or Colette in Paris, they were almost immediately snatched up. Thus, the compilation of these zines was a herculean effort and the book is invaluable as an encyclopedic compendium that will be a critical purchase for anyone interested in contemporary artist publications. Every zine found after years of research by the editors which was created by Gonzales from 1992 until today, including those created in collaboration with Harmony Korine, Cameron Jamie, and others, is presented with all available publishing information and illustrated with cover and interior scans.

Upon critical contemplation of the aesthetic and philosophical contents of the zines, Gonzales’ creative genius becomes evident. From child-like drawings of playful characters scribbled over snapshots Gonzales took on his travels, to emotional poems about the mendacity of life with words scratched out creating complex and outré koans, Gonzales’s zines have a simplicity that showcases his whimsical and poignant mind. But most of all, there’s a freedom in the ephemeral nature of these thin paper volumes: Gonzales isn’t manacled to rules of any sort, and the results that he pours onto the page reflect that unbridled joie de vivre.” First come, first served! - $450.

Book of the day > The Heavens by Barbara Bosworth. Published by @Radius.Books. "Images of the moon, sun and sky. Made over the past several years with an 8×10 camera, the star images are hour-long exposures with the camera mounted on a clock drive. The sun and moon images are made with a telescope attached to her camera. Speaking of her inspiration for these images, Bosworth writes: “Every clear night of the summer my father would go out for a walk to look at the night sky. Many nights I would join him. We knew the North Star, and the Big Bear, but the rest became our own. At times we stood still for an hour or more to watch for shooting stars. We had no agenda. It was all about amazement at a sky full of stars. With this sense of wonder, I began making photographs of the Heavens. In these days of the Hubble Telescope and its spectacular imagery from deep space, I wanted a reminder of the mystery of our own night sky.” The book also includes facsimile editions of three artist’s books that Bosworth has made as a nod to Galileo’s 17th-century publications in which he first observed the skies through a telescope."

Book of the day > Kraftwerk: Dance Forever. Published by Toby Mott @culturaltraffic. Designed by Alex McWhirter @mcwhirterstudio. Catalogue for the Cultural Traffic Detroit exhibition 2018. "A compelling collection of rare items from the German electronic music pioneers and those they influenced, it documents Kraftwerk's aesthetic output from the early 1970’s to the present. On display will be promotional material, sheet music, obsolete recorded media, posters, photos and musical toys charting Kraftwerk's highly influential machine music aesthetic, which inspired dance music and specifically Detroit Techno. The industrial sound of Motor City and Kraftwerk on the autobahn is a spiritual connection bought together at #CulturalTraffic Detroit. To mark the exhibition a catalogue will be available designed by Alex McWhirter containing a flexi disc single; Rusty Egan Presents, 'Thank You’ a tone poem homage to Kraftwerk and other early electronic music pioneers many of whom are featured in Kraftwerk: Dance Forever."

Book of the day > Wim Wenders: Instant Stories. Published by Schirmer/Mosel. "Wim Wenders, the distinguished filmmaker and co-founder of New German Cinema, is also a world-renowned photographer. He has exhibited his large-format, panoramic photographs in Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Bilbao, Sydney, Shanghai, Rome, São Paulo, Moscow, Copenhagen, New York and Düsseldorf. Now, for the first time, this book – published to accompany an exhibition at London’s Photographer’s Gallery – presents his polaroids. Spanning the 1970s to the present day, they feature friends, actors and personal heroes, objects, places, spaces and situations from the everyday life of a travelling filmmaker. Wenders does not order his ‘photographic notes’, as he calls them, by theme, but as stories. They are accompanied by his own texts, short stories and haikus.Wim Wenders: Instant Stories is a photographic road trip through the life of the artist, from his early travels through America’s cinematic landscapes to the German provinces and beyond."

Book of the day > Casa Barragán. Published by Toto. Back in stock after a loooong absence and one of the very few Barrágan books available! “Barragán's houses evoke glamour and simplicity, modernity and nostalgia, respect for tradition and revolutionary turns. The influence of his childhood home, a former Mexican hacienda, is clear and yet contrasted with his bold use of colours. Five of his house designs are lavishly pictured here, both inside and out. Accessible short descriptions are included with each photograph. Accompanied by an extended essay by Yutaka Saito.”

Book of the day > Pansy Beat. Published by Krimskrams Island LLC. "Pansy Beat was a short-lived fanzine published by Michael Economy in New York from 1989 to 1990, totaling five quarterly issues. Each issue’s 50-some black-and-white pages documented the exuberant downtown gay and drag club scene of that era and included one free condom. The zine offered a glimpse into an exhilarating alternative universe during the darkest years of the AIDS crisis. Interviews profiled downtown personalities on the verge of global stardom, many still working to this day. Artists such as Lady Bunny, Billy Erb, Connie Fleming, Kenny Kenny, Lady Miss Kier and Larry Tee first shared their memorable selves in print on the pages of Pansy Beat. The zine also featured interviews with Edwige Belmore, Leigh Bowery and Quentin Crisp. This book celebrates Pansy Beat’s brief but influential life, including a reprinting of all five issues in their original format, previously unseen photographs by staff photographer Michael Fazakerley, new full-color artwork by some of the original contributors, plus new essays and interviews. Book design by Jan Wandrag."

Book of the day > Jason Fulford: The Medium Is A Mess. Published by Studio Blanco. ” In the autumn of 2017, Studio Blanco (@studioblanco.it) invited photographer Jason Fulford (@mushroom_collector) to Reggio Emilia, Italy, to take pictures of the ateliers of Reggio Children. He spent a week in the city with the aim of documenting and celebrating the creative process globally known as the Reggio Emilia Approach. This book features photographs by Fulford in the ateliers and streets of the city, as well as pictures previously taken in Japan, Korea, and the United States.

“Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains as high as possible.” Loris Malaguzzi In Reggio Emilia, the first public nursery school was created in 1945 with funds from the sales of a military tank, three trucks and six horses left behind by fleeing German soldiers. The school was managed by a group of volunteers, since the role of a professional teacher for pre-schoolers did not exist yet according to the Italian law. Twenty years later, a teacher and psychologist named Loris Malaguzzi took inspiration from those first educational efforts to set up a pioneering educational system, which was tested in a new preschool called Diana. It lay in the middle of the city’s main park. It had a square at its core, three classrooms, two small gardens, a kitchen and an atelier. It was full of light, because most of its walls were just big windows.  Today the Reggio Emilia Approach has become globally renowned: all year long, delegations of teachers flock to this small city to learn about it. Malaguzzi based it on a few basic ideas: the families’ participation, the fact that teachers should work together, the presence of a kitchen and an atelier inside the school and, most importantly, the conviction that the child should always be at the centre of her own development, that she should be let free to express herself in the “hundred languages” that humans can use. This book is a tribute to this approach. In it, shapes and colours from the ateliers are juxtaposed to urban details. Every now and then, some children’s faces peek from a page, as if they were busy making sense out of what they were seeing in order to finally assemble all those elements. Layer after layer, new meanings emerge. We are tempted to grab them, crystallize them, and jot them down but they only last the time of a blink, before being reshuffled with what is coming next and what is still to come. Let’s not worry about it. Isn’t this the experience of growing up, after all?"

Book of the day > The Swimming Pool in Photography. Published by Hatje Cantz. " The Swimming Pool in Photography invites readers to dive into the cultural history of swimming pools. As long as 5,000 years ago, the allure of the sea inspired humans to recreate its essence in miniature artistic forms, such as public baths where ancient rituals would take place. Since then, swimming pools have become status symbols and a source for a gamut of purposes from athletics to the simple pleasure of just being in water. It is no wonder, then, that filmmakers and photographers constantly return to the swimming pool as a subject and setting. Reflections of water and light are captured in countless unique ways in the more than 200 compelling images of pools and swimmers that comprise this catalog. The Swimming Pool in Photography includes works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gigi Cifali, Stuart Franklin, Harry Gruyaert, Emma Hartvig, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Joel Meyerowitz, Martin Parr, Paolo Pelligrin, Mack Sennett, Alec Soth, Larry Sultan, Alex Webb, and many others." 

Book of the day > Making America Modern: Interior Design in the 1930s by Marilyn F. Friedman. Published by Bauer And Dean. “The designers of the 1930s had a determination to forge a contemporary style, rejecting the revivalism that had defined American design during the nineteenth century. They drew their inspiration from diverse sources, such as Art Deco, the Bauhaus, the Viennese Secession, Shintoism, and streamlining, and they embraced new concepts in construction, materials, and style. Over the course of the decade they developed a framework for modern interior design that was faithful to core principles of simplicity, practicality and comfort, a conceptual framework that continues to define American modern interior design today. A valuable resource for design professionals, historians, and enthusiasts, this book chronicles the development of modern interior design in the United States in the 1930s. With detailed descriptions and more than 200 archival images, design historian Marilyn F. Friedman presents more than 100 interiors by 50 designers and architects, including work by design luminaries Donald Deskey, Paul T. Frankl, Cedric Gibbons, William Lescaze, Tommi Parzinger, Eugene Schoen, Walter Dorwin Teague, Joseph Urban, and Kem Weber. Friedman also draws attention to lesser known male and female designers, including Joseph Aronson, Virginia Conner, Freda Diamond, Robert Heller, and Eleanor Le Maire. Interiors include private commissions, model homes, and exhibition displays that spanned the economic spectrum, from those created for wealthy patrons, such as Walter Annenberg and Abby Rockefeller Milton, to those designed with affordability in mind.”

Book of the day > Lorna Simpson: Collages. Published by @chroniclebooks. “’Black women’s heads of hair are galaxies unto themselves, solar systems, moonscapes, volcanic interiors.’ —Elizabeth Alexander, from the Introduction Using advertising photographs of black women (and men) drawn from vintage issues of Ebony and Jet magazines, the exquisite and thought-provoking collages of world-renowned artist Lorna Simpson explore the richly nuanced language of hair. Surreal coiffures made from colorful ink washes, striking geological formations from old textbooks, and other unexpected forms and objects adorn the models to mesmerizingly beautiful effect. Featuring 160 artworks, an artist’s statement, and an introduction by poet, author, and scholar Elizabeth Alexander, this volume celebrates the irresistible power of Simpson’s visual vernacular.”