Book of the day > Mickalene Thomas: MUSE. Aperture. “Mickalene Thomas, known for her large-scale, multitextured and rhinestone-encrusted paintings of domestic interiors and portraits, identifies the photographic image as a defining touchstone for her practice. Thomas began to photograph herself and her mother as a student at Yale, studying under David Hilliard—a pivotal experience for her as an artist. This volume is the first to gather together her various approaches to photography, including portraits, collages, Polaroids and other processes. The work is a personal act of deconstruction and reappropriation. Working primarily in her studio, Thomas' portraits draw equally from memories of her mother, 1970s black-is-beautiful images of women such as supermodel Beverly Johnson and actress Vonetta McGee, Édouard Manet's odalisque figures and the mise-en-scène studio portraiture of James Van Der Zee and Malick Sidibé. The interior space of her studio, a reappearing character in many of her photographs and paintings, frequently takes on as much of a performative role as her models do. The space exudes a thick, cozy physicality from its layers of fur, rugs, wood paneling and multipatterned linoleum tiles—all of which are richly laden with sensory triggers of a 1970s American rumpus room.”

Book of the day > Gasoline and Magic, Hilar Stadler. Edition Patrick Frey/Museum im Bellpark. “Everything about them is cool. The baby blue Porsche 917, the Chevy Camaro, the blue-, red- and yellow-striped overalls, the boys in low-buttoned shirts, sporting moustaches and a full head of hair, with the sunshine in their faces. Women wearing thick eyeliner and bell-bottoms, girls in crocheted bikinis at the finishing line, garlands of flowers for the winner. Motor sports in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s gave rise to a whole world of imagery that arouses a certain wistfulness nowadays. Not only a nostalgia for beautiful old racing cars, but a more comprehensive yearning for the days when even major auto races were still held on ordinary roads, when ambitious auto mechanics would tinker away at a racing car in the local garage and international Grand Prix stars were still approachable. Gilles Villeneuve pushes a strand of hair behind his ear, Pedro Rodriguez rests up on a little stone wall, Jo Siffert stands around in white jeans and cowboy boots, Ayrton Senna is absorbed in thought. The cars race through Monaco and Le Mans and over the hills of Palermo. Most of the pictures in Gasoline and Magic, often impressive and quasi intimate shots, were taken by amateur photographers, who now share with us their fascination with fast cars. Swiss filmmaker and collector Thomas Horat spent years tracking down, labeling and archiving these pictures, which he presented for the first time to the world at large in Gasoline and Magic – and at the show "VROOOOAAAMMM" at the Museum im Bellpark in Kriens, Switzerland.”

We are extending (through Wednesday 2/24) our special offer to pre-purchase a SIGNED copy of each of the three volumes of the John Baldessari authoritative catalogue raisonné published by Marian Goodman Gallery in association with Yale University Press. We will be taking pre-paid orders at the publishers' list price of $200.00 per book - up to one set per person only - in store, via phone (310-458-1499)  and on our website (with delivery in an estimated three weeks) through Wednesday 2/24.

Mr. Baldessari's new exhibition opens at Sprüth Magers Los Angeles on Wednesday, 2/24!

Book of the day > Todd Hido: Khrystyna’s World. Reflex  Amsterdam. Signed: $ 150.  “Khrystyna has the rare ability to become unrecognizable; to become somebody else - many different people, in fact. Todd Hido, meanwhile, had never really bought into the idea of a muse. He had never worked so consistently with a single model before, but with just one Khrystyna he found himself capturing endless others: characters, times, places. Throughout Khrystyna's World, however different the implied stories that Hido creates across this sweeping body of work, a single constant is Khrystyna's fullness of expression. Never simply a prop for hair and makeup, she is an animate communication of Hido's complex environments, their spirits, shadows and combustible associations. In a single collection of photographs, Hido illustrates a sense of empowerment with the skeleton of vulnerability, sarcasm in the face of threat, and playfulness despite gravity. Khrystyna's World exists outside of time and place, therefore. The physical world shapes the title character's internal one, at the same time that it is the reflection of it.”

Book of the day > Robert Mapplethorpe: The Archive. Getty Research Institute. “Celebrated photographer Robert Mapplethorpe challenged the limits of censorship and conformity, combining technical and formal mastery with unexpected, often provocative content that secured his place in history. Mapplethorpe’s artistic vision helped shape the social and cultural fabric of the 1970s and ’80s and, following his death in 1989 from AIDS, informed the political landscape of the 1990s. His photographic works continue to resonate with audiences all over the world. Throughout his career, Mapplethorpe preserved studio files and art from every period and vein of his production, including student work, jewelry, sculptures, and commercial assignments. The resulting archive is fascinating and astonishing. With over 400 illustrations, this volume surveys a virtually unknown resource that sheds new light on the artist’s motivations, connections, business acumen, and talent as a curator and collector."

See you this weekend at the fabulous Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair. We'll be in booth Q02 with walls and vitrines filled with dozens or rarities and delights.

Click here for all the details!

Book of the day and book signing tomorrow (2/6, 4-6) with coffee courtesy of Cognoscenti! > Hollywood Café: Coffee With The Stars by Steven Rea. Schiffer. “Put on a pot of your favorite coffee, perk up, and enjoy nostalgic black-and-white photos that celebrate screen icons from the Silent Era through the eighties, making and drinking their own cups of joe, java, pour-overs, and percolated brews. Hollywood Café bridges the vibrant coffee culture of right-now with the glamorous coffee culture of the star-studded past. A dream cast of nearly 200 stars—Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Clara Bow, Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth, Bob Hope, Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Ava Gardner, Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball, Elvis Presley, Jayne Mansfield, Sammy Davis Jr., William Holden, Lauren Bacall, John Wayne, and many more—is captured on the set, on the run, in costume and out, behind-the-scenes and at the kitchen table, refilling and refueling, sipping and savoring, drinking the good stuff, just like us.”

Order a signed copy here or join us tomorrow - details are here!

Thanks to Cognoscenti!

Book of the day > African Textiles: The Karun Thakar Collection. Prestel. “This book offers a fascinating journey through the history and culture of textiles in Africa drawn from the private collection of Karun Thakar, widely considered to be one of the best in the world.  This collection of rare and exquisite textiles from Central, Northern, and West Africa includes weavings from Ghana, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast; embroideries, veils, and haiks from Morocco and Tunisia; and raffia fabrics from Congo. Organized by region, each piece is dramatically photographed to highlight the extraordinary colors, patterns, and skill with which it was created. Drawn from a collection consisting of over 4,000 pieces, this book illustrates the most important textiles from the renowned collection. The book provides not only a thrilling sample of timeless patterns and designs but also a historical perspective that deepens our understanding of the importance of woven materials in the African tradition.”

Book of the day > Nicolas Winding Refn: The Act of Seeing. Fab Press. “For the first time filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn trawls through his unique collection of rare American film posters to unfold ways the viewer validates and actualizes the presentation of key images into their own personal reality. From the vintage visuals of SPIKED HEELS AND BLACK NYLONS, OBSCENE HOUSE and ALICE IN ACIDLAND to THE TWISTED SEX, TORTURE ME KISS ME and ZERO IN AND SCREAM – to name just a few of the tantalizing film titles showcased – the controversial Danish icon constructs a whole new way of looking at the key artwork and shameless hyperbole thought up in the back alley gutters of the exploitation industry. The masterfully overblown promises and alluring tag-lines were dubious attractions solely devised to persuade the ravished sight to suppress the cool head of reason and tempt it to sit in a dark auditorium to watch other people’s lurid lives shockingly unravel. Now the celebrated filmmaker makes complicit voyeurs of us all by editing his exceptional collection of little-seen and vivid front-of-house displays into an extraordinary creation to match the observation sensations explored in his own pioneering screen work. With comprehensive historical context provided for each poster and every production detail meticulously overseen by Winding Refn himself, this book encapsulates everything he has knows about eyewitness confrontation on a heart-felt journey into the art and act of seeing. This lavish quarter bound volume has unprecedented production values including silk covered boards and a cloth bound gold embossed slipcase.”

Arcana: Books on the Arts is getting ready for L.A.’s Printed Matter Book Fair right now, a massive event celebrating art books and publishing. “With the proliferation of small specialty publishers and the ease of self-publishing this is seemingly a golden age for ‘The Photobook’” says Lee Kaplan, co-founder of Arcana, which he and his wife, Whitney Kaplan, started in 1984.

“But the sheer number of books being released each week, month, year has made it not only increasingly difficult to keep up with the output, but to separate the extraordinary publications from the mundane due to such an overwhelming sameness of the look of so many of these,” he explains.

Nowhere is that sameness more clear than at something like an art book fair: the same worn out minimalist design, the same outplayed slick set-up. But even in the age of internet photo-galleries, there’s a kind of mystical quality to a good photobook. Like a piece of memorabilia, and there’s something uniquely collectible about them. Arcana specialises in “new, rare, and hard to catalogue raisonnés, monographs, and collectibles,” says Lee. Arcana is a huge space, and they stock books and ephemera on the visual arts, music, architecture, cinema and design. The shop is warehouse-like, but still inviting, lit by large windows and tucked off of Venice Boulevard in Culver City, L.A. It caters to photographers, gallerists and artists, collectors, and Hollywood creative types.

Lee sets his sights on the good stuff with Huck’s Forecast 2016.

The Photography Book Forecast

From Lee Kaplan

Mark Ruwedel

“Mark Ruwedel is a Southern California-based photographer that has for decades thoughtfully and beautifully captured the region’s changing environment by wryly documenting the encroaching hand of man on the remaining nearby deserts. His work frequently maintains a playful reference to the early artist books of Ed Ruscha, and has been steadily gaining an international reputation. He was the recipient of the 2015 Scotia Bank Prize for Photography, and his Pictures of Hell from RAM Publications was absolutely one of our favourite books from last year here at the shop.”

The Swimming Pool by Deanna Templeton

“Much of Deanna Templeton’s work to date has been that of a street photographer in the guise of a cultural anthropologist. She captures the young women and girls that populate the beaches, strands, and malls of Orange County – effortlessly noting the minute details of their everyday dress, and how they adorn their skin, hair, and bodies to present themselves to the world. These fleeting variations of teenage individuality are both a contemporary fashion typology as well as a more ominous view of a suburban Stepford conformity. For the upcoming The Swimming Pool, she has jettisoned the familiar public presentation of these youthful strangers to intimately reveal her friends swimming nude in her backyard pool.”

Robert Mapplethorpe: The Photographs + Robert Mapplethorpe: The Archive

“Robert Mapplethorpe’s life and work have both received a great resurgence of interest over the past few years, and Los Angeles has become something of a second home for the study of the late, New York-based photographer. The County Museum of Art celebrated a significant acquisition of materials in 2011 with a career retrospective, and this spring they are presenting along with The J. Paul Getty Museum four separate shows related to his photographs, documents, and collecting proclivities. The Photographs focuses on the abundant holding of his images collected by the Getty – starting with their acquisition of his partner Sam Wagstaff’s massive collection; while The Archive is an anticipated and no-doubt fascinating collection of student, early, and commercial work, sculpture, and even jewellery designs that have mostly never seen the light of day.”

KH 3 by Kevin Harry

Over the past two years Kevin Harry has self-published two small books cum zines entitled KH that joyously document the lively sense of fashion and personal style that pervade the participants and attendees alike at street celebrations of the African diaspora. The first issue featured images taken at New York’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, and the second documented the 2015 Afropunk Fest in Brooklyn. The third installment will be devoted to tonsorial style, and should be with us just in time for the Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair in mid-February.

Provoke: Between Protest and Performance – Photography in Japan 1969-1975

Published in conjunction with an international touring exhibition, this massive hardbound catalogue Provoke: Between Protest and Performance will provide the first major institutional reassessment of the historical impact of short-lived but highly influential late sixties Japanese photography publication Provoke. Provoke’s core members consisted of critic Koji Taki, poet Takahiko Okada, and photographers Takuma Nakahira, Yakata Takanashi and Daido Moriyama along with Nobuyoshi Araki, Eikoh Hosoe, and Shomei Tomatsu, and the book focuses on their selected writings and projects undertaken between 1960 and 1975, “that offer a strongly interpretative account of currents in Japanese art and society at a moment of historical collapse and renewal.”

See the article on Huck's website.