Shio Kusaka and Jonas Wood draw from each others work as painter and potter to probe the tensions between representation and expression, precision and chance, and influences from art history and life. Kusaka’s porcelain vessels play muse to Wood’s drawn and painted interiors, while conversely their idiosyncratic forms and glazes owe something to his impulsive line. They draw from personal memory and their shared existence as a married couple - his half-objective, half-fictional Los Angeles landscapes and still lifes set in their studio on Culver City's Blackwelder Street, and her painted patterns that allude to their young daughter’s fascination with dinosaurs.

Jonas Wood’s works display overlapping textures and disorienting compressions of space. These intimate settings invoke the work of forebears such as Matisse and Hockney, yet his distorted verdant rooms possess an affectless cut-out appearance that is all his own. In drawings, collages, watercolors, and paintings, outlines of pots and vases frame landscape and interior imagery. Drawn and painted vessels set against neutral backgrounds contain a sprawling green golf course, a coral reef with exotic fish, a lush garden, a painter’s studio - all scenes that end abruptly at the parameters of the object.

Shio Kusaka’s recent vessels take traditions of Japanese stoneware and porcelain as a foundation for historical fusions inspired by Iron Age ceramics, Minimalist repetition, and the silt pottery of Ancient Egypt. These quotations merge with the subtle dimples, pinches, and other surface impressions of her haptic approach, as well as eccentric touches such as long handles in the shape of Brontosauri, or blue streaks suggestive of rainfall. Several works are glazed with imprecise grids in which the artist softens hard geometries by allowing her lines to waver and overlap, while on tall glazed vessels colors ebb from dark green to white.

The two share influences and imagery but embark on autonomous explorations of their respective media. Exhibited together, these symbiotic works reveal the autobiographical roots and layers of cross-pollination that inspire their creation. Shio Kusaka and Jonas Wood's unique collaborative working process and artistic output are beautifully documented in the newly-published Gagosian and Rizzoli monograph Blackwelder.

Please come celebrate with our delightful neighbors Ms. Kusaka and Mr. Wood at Arcana on Wednesday evening July 8th as they unveil the awesome Blackwelder! We're anticipating an enthusiastic turnout, so do try to arrive early to insure ease of parking.

Events Posted Jun 23, 2015

Save the Dates: Upcoming Events at Arcana: Books on the Arts

Sunday, July 5th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM

LINDA ROSENKRANTZ: TALK

Wednesday, July 8th, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

JONAS WOOD + SHIO KUSAKA: BLACKWELDER

Sunday, July 26th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
DANIEL OSTROFF: AN EAMES ANTHOLOGY

July - TBD
TOM ADLER (WITH GUESTS C.R. STECYK III AND JEFF DIVINE): AN UNCOMMON ARCHIVE

July - TBD
ETHAN RAFAL: SHOCK AND AWE - WITH WHISKY AND PIE!

Saturday, August 22nd, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
RYAN SCHUDE: SCHUDE

Events Posted Jun 23, 2015

PLEASE JOIN US SUNDAY, JULY 5th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR A BOOK SIGNING > LINDA ROSENKRANTZ: TALK

Talk is a hilariously irreverent and racy testament to dialogue - the gossip, questioning, analysis, arguments, and revelations that make up our closest friendships. Set in the summer of 1965, Emily, Vincent, and Marsha are at the beach. The trio are ambitious, artistic, hovering around thirty, and deeply and mercilessly invested in analyzing themselves along with everyone around them. They discuss sex, shrinks, psychedelics, sculpture, and S&M in an ongoing narrative where anything goes, and no topic is off limits. These conversations were tape-recorded by Linda Rosenkrantz, and transformed into a novel whose form and content put it well ahead of its time. Controversial upon its first publication in 1968, Talk remains fresh, lascivious, and laugh-out-loud funny nearly fifty years later.

"It is sometimes hard to remember just how radical Talk was when it was published. Rosenkrantz’s innovative process of using transcribed recorded conversation as dialogue introduced a level of reality not unlike the choice to paint from photographs instead of live models".
— Chuck Close

Linda Rosenkrantz is the author of several books including Telegram!: Modern History as Told Through More than 400 Witty, Poignant, and Revealing Telegrams, her memoir, My Life as a List: 207 Things About My (Bronx) Childhood, and the co-author with Christopher Finch of Gone Hollywood: The Movie Colony in the Golden Age. She resides in Los Angeles and is a founder of the popular baby-naming site Nameberry.com.

Come meet Ms. Rosenkrantz Sunday afternoon, July 5th in the air-conditioned splendor of Arcana and celebrate the long overdue reappearance of her innovative, now-classic Summer read! If you would like to purchase a signed copy (or two!) of Talk but cannot attend, please click here, or call us at 310-458-1499.

Events Posted Jun 19, 2015

Book Signing at Arcana, 6/20/15: BRYAN RAY TURCOTTE: FUCKED UP + PHOTOCOPIED | FUCKED UP +: THE READER | CYNTHIA CONNOLLY: BANNED IN DC (NEW EDITION) | NEW DEADBEAT CLUB PRESS 'ZINE: BIG LOTS

PLEASE JOIN US SATURDAY, JUNE 20th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
FOR A BOOK EVENT:

Two seminal documentarians of the American punk scene come together Saturday, June 20th from 4 to 6:00 PM at Arcana: Books on the Arts for one afternoon only to celebrate newly re-released editions of two of their legendary and long out-of-print books. Cynthia Connolly's Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes From the DC Punk Underground (79–86) is finally back in print with a seventh edition that includes a brand new, eight page afterword by the Washington DC-based author and publisher. And Los Angeles' own Bryan Ray Turcotte's Fucked Up + Photocopied: Instant Art Of The Punk Rock Movement - the great visual history of the LA punk flyer in book form - is back with a 15th Anniversary edition.

Conceived of by Cynthia Connolly, assembled with Leslie Clague and Sharon Cheslow, and originally released in December of 1988, Banned in DC collects hundreds of photos, flyers, and stories documenting the DC punk scene from the late seventies through the mid-eighties. It includes images of local bands Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Faith, Marginal Man, Scream, Red C, Rites of Spring, Nuclear Crayons, Insurrection, Hate from Ignorance, G.I., Bloody Mannequin Orchestra, Void, Second Wind, and many more. In honor of sharing the event with Bryan Ray, an avid collector of punk-era ephemera, Cynthia Connolly is bringing her personal stock of original flyers from the nineties promoting her U.S. photo tour with Pat Graham. Fans will be able to select a vintage flyer with each purchase of Banned in DC - while supplies last! Also launching will be her new 'zine Big Lots; published by the always great Deadbeat Club Press. Limited to two hundred copies, it is a selection of 35mm half-frame and landscape photography taken in the DIY documentary spirit we’ve come to expect of her.

Bryan Ray Turcotte's Fucked Up + Photocopied: Instant Art Of The Punk Rock Movement is a collection of frenetic flyers produced for the American Punk scene between 1977 and 1985. Many were created by the musicians themselves and demonstrate the emphasis within the movement on individuality and the manic urge of its members to create things anew. Aso available on Saturday will be Fucked Up +: The Reader - the complete collected essays from Fucked Up + Photocopied and Punk Is Dead: Punk Is Everything self-published in a highly legible format in a limited edition of one hundred copies.

Cynthia Connolly is a photographer, curator, letterpress printer, and artist who lives in the Washington, DC area. She has published Banned in DC through her independent press Sun Dog Propaganda. Connolly's photographic work, postcards, and books have been exhibited internationally, and are in the permanent collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American History, and Corcoran Gallery of Art. She was prominently included in the genre-defining "Beautiful Losers" show that toured the United States and Europe from 2004–2009.

Bryan Ray Turcotte spent his twenties on the road with his band while managing to hold down his job at the legendary punk record label Slash. He has co-published Fucked Up + Photocopied..., Shepard Fairey: Post No Bills, Punk Is Dead: Punk Is Everything and Jeff Gold's 101 Essential Rock Records... in collaboration with Gingko Press, and the forthcoming It All Dies Anyway: LA, Jabberjaw, and the End Of An Era with Rizzoli. He co-owns Teenage Teardrops and Beta Petrol, an independent record label specializing in vinyl-only releases and a music supervision and production company. His archive of Punk-era publications, posters, flyers, and ephemera is legendary.

So, break out the leather and hair gel, resurrect the youthful attitude, and head to Arcana Saturday, June 20th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM - the same afternoon as The Culver City Arts District "Summer Crawl" - for this musically-charged Punk publishing extravaganza!

Events Posted Jun 06, 2015

Book Signing for Gusmano Cesaretti's "Maria Sabina" at Arcana, Sunday 6/14, 4:00 - 6:00 pm!

PLEASE JOIN US SUNDAY, JUNE 14th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR A BOOK SIGNING

GUSMANO CESARETTI: MARIA SABINA

Maria Sabina (1888-1985) was a healer, curandera, and Shaman in the Sierra Mazateca in the state of Oaxaca. She used the power of the sacred mushroom as part of her ceremonies that cured hundreds in her community throughout her lifetime. This association with the Psilocybin mushroom resulted in an unlikely late in life counterculture notoriety that brought her into contact with the likes of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Mick Jagger.

In this newly-released book from Mexico's Conaculta, noted Italian-born, Los Angeles-based photographer Gusmano Cesaretti shares his personal story of self-discovery when this great woman allowed him to enter her sacred world. Gusmano is one of the first to extensively document the Chicano Car Clubs and Street writers of Southern California, has worked extensively for decades with directors Michael Mann and the late Tony Scott, and his Fragments of Los Angeles 1969-1989 is one of our favorite photography books about the city.

So come meet our friend Gusmano and celebrate the publication of this most intriguing visual memoir. If you would like to purchase a signed copy (or two) of Maria Sabina but cannot attend, please click here, or call us at 310-458-1499

Events Posted May 06, 2015

McGrath + Templeton Book Signing - SUNDAY!

PLEASE JOIN US SUNDAY, MAY 10th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM FOR A BOOK SIGNING:
DENNIS McGRATH: HEAVEN + DEANNA TEMPLETON: THEY SHOULD NEVER TOUCH THE GROUND

"Dennis McGrath’s Heaven illustrates an incredible journey of a lost soul. Professional skateboarder Lennie Kirk began his career in the early nineties at the ripe young age of sixteen. He was a wild child - fearless and invincible - for whom nothing seemed out of his reach. He was only eighteen when he was run over by a truck. Board broken but otherwise unharmed, he walked away from skateboarding and ‘found God’. However, after finding salvation, his wild antics were no different, and if anything, became crazier. His passion was manic and dangerous, and often got him into trouble. Lennie is currently serving thirteen years in jail - his second incarceration. With an intense collection of letters, photographs, and ephemera, McGrath takes us on a visual journey through Lennie’s wild ride of life".

Hot-off-the-press from Arcana favorite Deadbeat Club Press, Deanna Templeton's They Should Never Touch The Ground is a wry, engaging photographic survey of today's 'creative' uses of the American Flag-motif, and the sometimes misplaced respect for 'Old Glory' itself. Known primarily for over a decade's work of telling portraits of girls grappling with the transition to adulthood, her photographs have been the subject of five previous books along with a number of gallery and Museum exhibitions.

So drop by between 4:00 to 6:00 PM, Sunday, May 10^thfor a lemonade or a beer, and come and hang with Deanna and Dennis to celebrate the publication of They Should Never Touch the Ground and Heaven!

Events Posted Apr 29, 2015

Dennis McGrath + Deanna Templeton Booksignings at Arcana, Sunday 5/10!

Book Signing at Arcana > Sunday, May 10th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM

DENNIS MCGRATH: HEAVEN and DEANNA TEMPLETON: THEY SHOULD NEVER TOUCH THE GROUND

Events Posted Apr 21, 2015

Sunday: Randi Malkin Steinberger

Please join us! SUNDAY, APRIL 26th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM RANDI MALKIN STEINBERGER: CONGO MISSION BOX and TENTED FOR TERMITES.

Events Posted Apr 16, 2015

RANDI MALKIN STEINBERGER BOOK SIGNING SUNDAY, APRIL 26th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM

In 2011, Venice-based photographer Randi Malkin Steinberger produced the exquisite Boetti by Afghan People; a book based on her experience in the early nineties documenting the production of works of art designed by the noted late Italian conceptual practitioner Alighiero Boetti that were embroidered by Afghan women in refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan. Over the past several years she has turned her keen eye to those tented buildings we pass seemingly every day on our way to here or there. Though conspicuously clad in brightly-striped fumigation shrouds, their ubiquitousness serves as a barometer of the boom and bust cycles of the local residential real estate market that has rendered them all but invisible. Her vivid color images provide a typology of these ephemeral, quintessentially Southern Californian structures. Miranda July has written of them "Everyone has looked twice at these big top monoliths, but only Steinberger has looked again and again, transforming termite tents in to public art with her gorgeous and obsessive eye". While awaiting the publication of her upcoming book of this work - featuring an essay by Mike Davis -, Randi Malkin Steinberger will present an installation of these photographs utilizing Arcana's steel "Forest of Books" as a backdrop.

Additionally, Randi’s extensive collection of vernacular photography includes a box of prints from the estate of a country doctor she purchased on eBay. The original owner grew up as the son of a missionary in the Belgian Congo; living there with his parents until he came to the United States to attend college. The photographs date from the 1920s through the 1960s, and depict a lost view of Western religion and colonialism intersecting with the native peoples. Congo Mission Box is her newly-published book compiled from a selection of these images that was designed in conjunction with Book Machine at the 2015 Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair. It is available in a first printing of one hundred copies along with a deluxe edition conceived exclusively for the signing limited to twenty-one examples - each of which comes with an original vintage photograph from the Congo!

Please join us for cocktails from 4:00 to 6:00 PM on Sunday, April 26^thas we celebrate the publication of Randi Malkin Steinberger's Congo Mission Box and preview the public unveiling of her "Tented For Termites installation!

If you cannot attend but would like to purchase a signed copy of:

Congo Mission Box trade edition ($20.00) - click here

Congo Mission Box limited edition ($50.00 - one per customer) - click here
Boetti by Afghan People ($49.95) - click here
or give us a call at 310-458-1499.