Book of the day > Collecting Colour by Narayan Khandekar. Published by Artez Press. "In this book Narayan Khandekar, director of the Straus Center, takes us on a tour of the amazing universe of the Forbes Pigment Collection, which at present is kept in the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at Harvard University. This collection contains over three thousand natural and synthetic colouring agents. Khandekar shows the origins of the pigments and their cultural uses. At the same time, he demonstrates that pigments are essential building blocks of the unique nature of a work of art. Explore the unique collection through the essay and the many images in this book. Printed with high pigment ink."

Adding our voice to the chorus of sadness. 

Book of the day > Viviane Sassen - Roxane II. Published by Oodee @oodeebooks. "In Roxane II, Viviane Sassen and her muse Roxane continue writing their shared visual journal. The dynamic gallery of poses and moods touches notes at times sensual, at times tender. Images are equally about the performances in front of and behind the camera: Sassen’s presence is perceived through her shadow and made tangible by scraps of paper that bear the imprint of her breasts. This is a mutual portrait, an exchange in which the artist’s and model’s individualities blur, leaving traces on each other. As Maria Barnas writes in the poem introducing the images: 'When I take a glance at our selves I hold my breath and see us expand in colours and clouds bursting from a mouth. Are they yours or mine?'" #oodeebooks #vivianesassen

Book of the day > Looking for Lenin. Photographs by Niels Ackermann. Published by FUEL. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell. Text by Sébastien Gobert, Myroslava Hartmond. "The eerie beauty of Ukraine’s Lenin statues, toppled in the name of decommunization. In the process of decommunization, Ukraine has toppled all its Lenin monuments. The authors have hunted down and photographed these banned Soviet statues, revealing their inglorious fate. As Russia celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, Ukraine struggles to achieve complete decommunization. Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of this process is the phenomenon of Leninopad (Lenin-fall)—the toppling of Lenin statues. In 2015 the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation banning these monuments as symbols of the obsolete Soviet regime. From an original population of 5500 in 1991, today not a single Lenin statue remains standing in Ukraine. Photographer Niels Ackermann and journalist Sébastien Gobert, both based in Kyiv, have scoured the country in search of the remains of these toppled figures. They found them in the most unlikely of places: Lenin inhabits gardens, scrap yards and store rooms. He has fallen on hard times—cut into pieces; daubed with paint in the colors of the Ukrainian flag; transformed into a Cossack or Darth Vader—but despite these attempts to reduce their status, the statues retain a sinister quality, resisting all efforts to separate them from their history. These compelling images are combined with witness testimonies to form a unique insight, revealing how Ukrainians perceive their country, and how they are grappling with the legacy of their Soviet past to conceive a new vision of the future." #artbook

Book of the day > Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day. Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. “America’s representative at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Bradford has radically renewed abstract art. Mark Bradford’s exhibition for the US Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, titled Tomorrow Is Another Day, is born out of the artist’s longtime commitment to the inherently social nature of the material world. For Bradford, abstraction is not opposed to content; it embodies it. Finding materials for his paintings in the hair salon, Home Depot and the streets of Los Angeles, Bradford renews the traditions of abstract painting, demonstrating that freedom from socially prescribed representation is profoundly meaningful in the hands of a black artist. Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day is not only a catalog for Bradford’s pavilion project; it is a different kind of book, a substantial publication that blends the biographical with the historical and political. Essays from outside the art world—by Anita Hill, Peter James Hudson, W.E.B. Du Bois and Zadie Smith—narrate a series of interwoven stories about Reconstruction, civil rights and the vulnerable body in urban space, fleshed out with vivid archival photographs and documents. The book also includes significant new texts from curator Katy Siegel and art historian Sarah Lewis, as well as a revealing interview with Bradford, offering a new understanding of the work of one of today’s most influential contemporary artists.” 

Book of the day > Hortus Sanitatis: The Gucci Book by Derek Ridgers. Gold foiled hardcover with gold edged pages. Comes with Gucci poison red cotton pouch. Exclusive to us on the West Coast! Limited edition; first come, first served; one per person, please! "Hortus Sanitatis (Latin for ‘The Garden of Health’). Shot by Derek Ridgers, the book combines colour fashion photography of the Gucci pre-fall 2017 collection with illustrations of tigers and snakes and black and white photographs of library shelves and an apothecary. It takes its name from the first natural history encyclopedia, which was published in Mainz, Germany, in 1485. Shot in Rome in historical spaces that have remained untouched for centuries, the photographs offer a window into lost worlds. The locations are: Antica Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala, an old apothecary, Biblioteca Angelica, a beautiful library filled with rare, ancient manuscripts, and Antica Libreria Cascianelli, a sprawling archive of books and pieces of art." @idea.ltd @gucci @derekridgers

Book of the day > Autophoto: Cars & Photography, 1900 to Now. Published by Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain / Editions Xavier Barral. "The camera’s romance with the car: a photo history. Autophoto explores photography's longstanding and generative relationship to the automobile. Since its invention, the automobile has reshaped our landscape, extended our geographic horizons and radically altered our conception of space and time, influencing the practice of photographers worldwide.

The book shows how the car provided photographers with new subject matter and a new way of exploring the world. It brings together 500 works made by 100 historical and contemporary artists from around the world, including Robert Adams, Brassaï, Edward Burtynsky, Langdon Clay, John Divola, Robert Doisneau, William Eggleston, Elliott Erwitt, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Anthony Hernandez, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Joel Meyerowitz, Daido Moriyama, Catherine Opie, Martin Parr, Rosângela Rennó, Ed Ruscha, Hans-Christian Schink, Malick Sidibé, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel.

Capturing formal qualities such as the geometric design of roadways or reflections in a rear view mirror, these photographers invite us to look at the world of the automobile in a new way. Autophoto also includes other projects, such as a series of car models that cast a fresh eye on the history of automobile design, created specifically for the Fondation Cartier show by French artist Alain Bublex, plus a comparative history of automobile design and photography, essays by scholars and quotes by participating artists."

Book of the day > Marisa Merz: The Sky Is a Great Space by Connie Butler. Published by Prestel. “Bringing together five decades of painting, sculpture, and installations from the celebrated Italian artist Marisa Merz, this monograph accompanies a major US retrospective of her work. This generously illustrated book offers readers the chance to appreciate the full range of works by Marisa Merz, winner of the 2013 Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale. This volume traces Merz’s artistic evolution from early experiments with non-traditional materials and processes, to intricately constructed installations of the 1970s and the enigmatic ceramic heads of the 1980s and ’90s. Authoritative essays explore the rise of international women’s art in the 1960s and ’70s and Merz’s own place in Italy’s postwar art history. As the sole female protagonist of Arte Povera she is one of the few Italian women to exhibit in major venues internationally. Merz’s challenging and evocative body of work is deeply personal and resistant to the categories of art history, including Arte Povera and international feminist art, with which she was associated. Previously unpublished texts and poetry by the artist, and an illustrated chronology, complement this comprehensive look at an enormously influential artist.”

Book of the day > Peter Lindbergh & Garry Winogrand: Women. Published by König Books. "Women presents more than 60 works by two world-famous photographers: Peter Lindbergh and Garry Winogrand. A meditation on American street photography, it juxtaposes the classic black-and-white series Women Are Beautiful by New York photographer Garry Winogrand, first published in 1975, alongside On Street, partially unpublished black-and-white portraits of a model by German photographer and director Peter Lindbergh, which were taken on the streets of New York during a fashion shoot. A further highlight is a selection of very rare color photographs by Winogrand, shot in 1958–64. Short essays by Joel Meyerowitz on Winogrand, and by Ralph Goetz on Lindbergh, complete the volume." 

Book of the day > Emmanuelle Andrianjafy: Nothing's in Vain. Published by MACK. "In 2011, Malagasy photographer Emmanuelle Andrianjafy arrived in the port city of Dakar, situated on the westernmost African coast, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing’s in Vain is Adrianjafy’s response to the experience of uprooting to the Senegalese capital, a city as vibrant as it is disorientating. Embracing the chaos of an unfamiliar world, she takes us on an exploratory journey through a metropolis in constant flux between construction and deconstruction. The sequence of images careens between street scenes, portraits, landscapes, and close-up details, recreating her fluctuating experience of the multiple faces of the city. Nothing’s in Vain is the winner of the MACK First Book Award 2017. The First Book Award 2017 is published with support from Wilson Centre for Photography, Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and optimal media."