Photo, artwork, and book by David Orr.

"Los Angeles’s Culver City—which celebrates its centennial this year—is probably best known as the home of Sony Pictures, NPR West, and the Helms Bakery complex. But as of late, design-centric businesses like Nike and Apple have moved into town, bringing with them an onslaught of aesthetically minded shops and restaurants. Though the neighborhood—which is just east of Santa Monica—is just a little over five square miles, its architecture is extremely varied, ranging from Renaissance Revival–style historic buildings (like the Culver Hotel) to architect Eric Owens Moss’s body of experimental office spaces that dominate the industrial Hayden Tract. And, unlike other parts of L.A., alternative transportation is a viable option—a bike path that runs along the Ballona Creek will take you from Culver City to the beach, and the L.A. metro will get you downtown in 40 minutes. Below, 11 more reasons you’ll want to visit Culver City."
 

5. Arcana: Books on the Arts

Situated within the former Helms Bakery complex (now home to the Helms Design Center) is this not-to-be-missed bookstore specialing in hard-to-find art, photography, fashion, architecture, and design books.

 

Arcana

 

Photo: Courtesy of Catherine Dash

 

Los Angeles has its fair share of reputable art institutions. Places like LACMA, MOCA, the Broad, and the Getty (which is co-sponsoring the Pacific Standard Time LA/LA exhibit around Southern California) represent the typical ways of seeing and consuming art. But what if that type of consumption turns stale? What if you want to see art in a different type of space? Los Angeles has far more interesting and exciting places operating under the radar of the established art gate-keepers. Here are some of our favorites.

 

"Ok, so this one isn’t technically a museum or gallery. But the book collection at Arcana is so vast and so thorough that you’re likely to see and learn about far more art than you necessarily would at LACMA. It’s not a library, so if you want to take any books home you have to shell out some cold hard cash, but perusing the books while in the store is entertaining in and of itself. Photo books, artist biographies, museum exhibition catalogues, you name it—if there's an artist whose work you want to look at, it's likely Arcana has one or several books on the subject. The sheer breadth of possibilities in this store is staggering, and they regularly host book signings and discussions."

Book of the day and Book Signing/Exhibition tomorrow (Saturday 4-6 - with the Culver City Arts District Art Walk!)> Senon Williams: Hunted & Gathered.

Published by The Hamilton Press. Los Angeles native Senon Williams is a lifelong artist and musician. A founding member of the always-engaging Dengue Fever, Williams’ visual work finds space in the natural, exposing outstanding and devastating stages of human evolution. “To provoke thought, a question works better than answers. I enjoy to start a story I resolve in different ways depending on my mood". With imagery ranging from stark silhouettes to lush landscapes and human forms staged in undetermined acts of hope, his pairing of words and imagery form a poignant visualization of the inherent human struggle both ancient and contemporary.  Williams' first book, "Hunted & Gathered" was painstakingly produced by Hamilton Press. The press was established in 1990 by master printmaker Ed Hamilton and artist Ed Ruscha to encourage artists to produce art in a peaceful, unhurried atmosphere. Designed by Lorraine Wild and Marina Mills Kitchen of Green Dragon Office with color separations by Echelon Color, Santa Monica and printed by Dr.Cantz’sche Druckerei Median GmbH in Ostfildern, Germany, the first edition consists of seven hundred hardbound copies along with a deluxe edition of limited to fifty copies containing an original work on paper by the artist. Both editions will be available at the event and can be ordered on our website now!

Los Angeles native Senon Williams is a lifelong artist and musician. A founding member of the always-engaging Dengue Fever, Williams’ visual work finds space in the natural, exposing outstanding and devastating stages of human evolution. “To provoke thought, a question works better than answers. I enjoy to start a story I resolve in different ways depending on my mood". With imagery ranging from stark silhouettes to lush landscapes and human forms staged in undetermined acts of hope, his pairing of words and imagery form a poignant visualization of the inherent human struggle both ancient and contemporary. 

Williams' first book, "Hunted & Gathered" was painstakingly produced by Hamilton Press. The press was established in 1990 by master printmaker Ed Hamilton and artist Ed Ruscha to encourage artists to produce art in a peaceful, unhurried atmosphere. Steeped in traditional book making in a modern age, each publication itself is a fine object created by an esteemed team. Designed by Lorraine Wild and Marina Mills Kitchen of Green Dragon Office with color separations by Echelon Color, Santa Monica and printed by Dr.Cantz’sche Druckerei Median GmbH in Ostfildern, Germany, the first edition consists of seven hundred hardbound copies along with a deluxe edition of limited to fifty copies containing an original work on paper by the artist. Both editions will be available at the event and are available pre-order now. 

Come to Arcana on Saturday October 7th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM to celebrate the publication "Hunted & Gathered", view an exhibition of Senon Williams' artwork, and partake in the afternoon's Culver City Arts District Art Walk! If you cannot attend and would like to purchase a signed copy of either - or both - of the editions, please click here, or call us at 310-458-1499.

Book of the day > Fiorucci. Published by Rizzoli. Edited by David Owen, Foreword by Sofia Coppola. "Fifty years after its founding by Elio Fiorucci in 1967, the iconic Milanese fashion label is entering a new phase of ingenuity. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the label and the glittering unveiling of its new collection and retail stores, this book is a tribute to the history of a pioneering brand and a celebration of its colorful future.

Bright, colorful, sexy, and irreverent, Fiorucci came to define more than any other brand the fashion of the 1980s. Famous for scouring the world to bring vibrant elements of global underground culture into their designs, Fiorucci is responsible for defining the extravagant palette of the post-punk era, with neon and fluorescent tones, iridescent spandex and stretch denim, bringing the influences of pop art and pop culture to bear on fashion for the first time.

Now relaunched under the direction of impresarios Janie and Stephen Schaffer, Fiorucci continues to surprise, shock, and impress. In the spirit of Fiorucci itself, this delightful book is a bright and intoxicating tour through everything from the first leopard-print patterns to the new designs defining the future of this iconic brand." AND IT'S GOT STICKERS!!! @rizzolibooks # idea.ltd
 

Book of the day > Hilma af Klint: Seeing is Believing. Published by Koenig Books. “Thanks to the efforts of various international curators and artists, Swedish painter Hilma af Klint is now widely regarded as a pioneer of abstract art.This volume reproduces the last abstract images series made by af Klint in the 1920s, which have never before been published in their entirety. These images are complemented by essays based on lectures delivered during the exhibition Hilma af Klint: Painting the Unseen, at London’s Serpentine Galleries in 2016. Briony Fer, David Lomas, Branden Joseph, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Daniel Birnbaum shed new light on af Klint and her importance for artists today, also addressing the need for a broader conception of art history that her work proposes.”

Book of the day > Extra! Weegee. Published by Hirmer Verlag. "No other photographer has caught the sensations, scandals and catastrophes of the 1930s and 1940s in New York City with his camera as captivatingly as Weegee. He was always directly on the spot when it happened and documented the events and the onlookers. All the works come from the N.E.A. agency archive, which was only rediscovered in 2012; most of the vintage prints are being published for the very first time in this volume.

Weegee was the first photographer to receive official permission in 1938 to listen in live to the New York police radio. From then onwards he sometimes even arrived at the trouble spot before the police and took countless photographs. From the hardened police officer to the loud-mouthed crook; from the midnight boozer to the dancing jazz musician; from a dramatic conflagration to the celebrations at the end of the Second World War: Weegee immortalised all these moments in unforgettable pictures. The volume also shows a hitherto unknown side of the famous photographer – happy people enjoying themselves. The works are complemented by the exciting story of the rediscovery of the archive, which was missing for decades." Daniel Blau, editor.

Book of the day > Rinko Kawauchi: Halo. Published by Aperture @aperturefnd . "In recent years, Rinko Kawauchi’s exploration of the cadences of the everyday has begun to swing farther afield from her earlier photographs focusing on tender details of day-to-day living. In her series and resulting book Ametsuchi (2013), she concentrated mainly on the volcanic landscape of Japan’s Mount Aso, using a historic site of Shinto rituals as an anchor for a larger exploration of spirituality. In Halo, Kawauchi expands this inquiry, this time grounding the project with photographs of the southern coastal region of Izumo, in Shimane Prefecture, interweaving them with images from New Year celebrations in Hebei province, China—a five-hundred-year-old tradition in which molten iron is hurled in lieu of fireworks—and her ongoing fascination with the murmuration of birds along the coast of Brighton, England. Cycles of time, implicit and subliminal patterns of nature and human ritual, are mesmerizingly knit together in these pages. 

Contemporary Japanese photography has not often been concerned with the natural landscape; the seemingly ever-expanding cityscape of Tokyo was more of a preoccupation up until 2011, a moment when the presumed order of things—natural, civic, and otherwise—was upended by the combined disasters of tsunami, earthquake, and human miscalculation. Kawauchi’s most recent work is not a commentary on natural disaster and unnatural aftermath. It is, however, an acknowledgment of larger forces at play."