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 26th as 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:
 
Book of the Day Posted Apr 10, 2015

Seven Books of the day > The Los Angeles Artist Series for The Los Angeles Project

Seven Books of the day > The Los Angeles Artist Series for The Los Angeles Project at the UCCA in Beijing. KAARI UPSON: THE HOUSE, RYAN TRECARTIN: YET, STERLING RUBY: LA/BJ , MATTHEW MONAHAN: SQUARE GARDEN, ALEX ISRAEL: STICKER BOOK, AARON CURRY - BOXXES, KATHRYN ANDREWS: STRIP. UCCA and Koenig Books. "In a critical examination of one of the most important art centers in the Western world, the Ullen Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing dedicated its entire exhibition space to an anthology of seven shows of contemporary artists living and working in Los Angeles:  Kathryn Andrews, Aaron Curry, Alex Israel, Matthew Monahan, Sterling Ruby, Ryan Trecartin, and Kaari Upson.
These seven artists represent a generation of creative practitioners drawn to a global nexus, one whose rich cultural legacy and robust network of art schools, galleries, and institutions act as a magnet for top talents in the field of contemporary art. Outside of Hollywood, specific cultural connections between Los Angeles and Beijing have been lacking despite their imagined proximity as Pacific Rim cities. Los Angeles has long been imagined as a “city of the future” in much the same way that urban development in China has unfolded against the backdrop of an implicit utopianism. As China’s creative scene matures into a multi-polar terrain of geographies, contexts, and subjectivities, Los Angeles and its cultural topography become especially relevant to Beijing and its current position as the mainland’s creative capital. Following in the great artist book tradition of John Baldessari and Edward Ruscha, the UCCA has called the artists to make individual artist books for The Los Angeles Project in Beijing. These publications reflect the tremendous range of practices and positions presented within the UCCA exhibition.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 08, 2015

Book of the day > Vogels Huilen Niet (Birds Don't Cry): Anjes Gesink

Book of the day > Vogels Huilen Niet (Birds Don't Cry): Anjes Gesink. Lecturis. "Portraying birds in need at the Vogelklas Karel Schot bird sanctuary in Rotterdam, this book depicts a motley collection of all types, from starlings to swans. A blue-gloved hand, present in almost every picture, both symbolizes the care the birds get and refers to the human impact on their lives in the city. Directly or indirectly, each was put in a difficult situation by people, and now people are helping their recovery. Since 2012, photographer Anjès Gesink has volunteered at the sanctuary. Collaborating with André de Baerdemaeker, urban ecologist and sanctuary chairman, she tells a story of resilience and hope."


 

Events Posted Apr 08, 2015

Out Of Sight: The Los Angeles Art Scene of the Sixties Book Signing

Please join us Wednesday, April 15th, 6:00 - 8:00 pm for a Book Signing:

OUT OF SIGHT: THE LOS ANGELES ART SCENE OF THE SIXTIES BY WILLIAM HACKMAN

Histories of modern art are typically centered in Paris and New York. Los Angeles is relegated to its role as the center of popular culture - a city of movie stars, tan lines, and surfers - but lacking the highbrow credentials of the chosen places. Until 1965, there was no art museum, few notable collectors, and - especially in terms of modern and contemporary work - even fewer galleries. Yet in the fifties and sixties, L.A. witnessed a burst of artistic energy and invention rivaling New York’s burgeoning art scene a half-century earlier. As New York Times art critic Roberta Smith has noted, it was “a euphoric moment,” at a “time when East and West coasts seemed evenly matched.”

Out of Sight: The Los Angeles Art Scene of the Sixties chronicles the rapid-fire rise, fall, and rebirth of the L.A. art scene - from the emergence of a small bohemian community in the fifties to the founding of the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1980 - and explains how artists such as Edward Ruscha, Robert Irwin, and Ken Price reshaped contemporary art. In it, noted author and historian William Hackman explores the ways in which Los Angeles reflected the hopes and fears of postwar America  - in both  the self-confidence of an increasingly affluent middle class, and the anxiety produced by violent upheavals at home and abroad. Most of all, he pays tribute to the unique city and moment in time that gave birth to a fascinating, and until now much-overlooked chapter in modern art.

Have a look at Christopher Knight's glowing review of "Out of Sight..." in The Los Angeles Times here.

Join us in celebrating the publication of this exciting new contribution to Southern California's art history by one of our oldest and dearest friends! 
If you would like to purchase a signed copy (or two) of William Hackman's "Out of Sight: The Los Angeles Art Scene of the Sixties" but cannot attend, please click here, or call 310-458-1499.

Book of the Day Posted Apr 03, 2015

Book of the day > Thomas Campbell: Seeing Fatima's Eyes - Surf, Life, Stuff, Morocco, North Africa

Book of the day > Thomas Campbell: Seeing Fatima's Eyes - Surf, Life, Stuff, Morocco, North Africa. Um Yeah Press. Book signing (with Ed Templeton) tomorrow, Saturday, 4-6 at Arcana!
"Seeing Fatima's Eyes is a new photographic essay by the self-taught painter, sculptor, photographer and filmmaker Thomas Campbell (born 1969), on surfing and life in Morocco. In the early 1990s, just prior to his immersion in the scene around New York's Alleged Gallery, Campbell would regularly hole up in the North African enclave to produce paintings for solo exhibitions in Paris, New York and Rabat, all the while scouring the coast during the winter months for whatever waves might roll in from the Atlantic. Later, over the last ten years, Campbell brought various surfers of note (such as Dan Malloy, Alex Knost, Craig Anderson, Dave Rastovich and Ryan Burch) to join him there, and to savor Morocco's glorious climate and stupendous surf. This book, the second in Campbell's Slide surfing series (following 2012's Slide Your Brains Out), records these collective Moroccan adventures from the past 20 years, in color and black-and-white images that range from the everyday to the sublime."
Book of the Day Posted Apr 02, 2015

Book of the day > Invitation to Openness: the Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann, 1960-1980

Book of the day > Invitation to Openness: the Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann, 1960-1980. Fantagraphics. "This collects the photographs of legendary musician Les McCann; he documented the jazz scene and its players—Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Count Basie, and many others—from the inside, across several decades.  Throughout Les McCann’s incredible jazz career, he took hundreds of photos—at clubs, studios, and festivals around the world—and documented the vibrant cultural life of jazz and soul between 1960 and 1980. These photos include a very young Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sammy Davis Jr., John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Richard Pryor, Quincy Jones, Tina Turner, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderly, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, B.B. King, Errol Garner, Stanley Clarke, Bill Evans, Lionel Hampton, and other black celebrities, such as Bill Cosby, Muhammed Ali, and Stokely Carmichael to name but a few. These photos are characterized by their intimacy, and the cross-section of names listed is merely the tip of the iceberg. The book features candid commentary by McCann himself and is curated by Pat Thomas (Listen, Whitey!: The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975) and maverick music producer Alan Abrahams (Pure Prairie League, Joan Baez, Stanley Turrentine, Kris Kristofferson, Taj Mahal)."
Book of the Day Posted Apr 01, 2015

Book of the day > Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us by Paul Koudounaris

Book of the day > Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us by Paul Koudounaris. Thames & Hudson. " The astonishing story of how the dead live on in memorials and traditions across the globe, from Ethiopia and Nepal to Cambodia and Rwanda, told through arresting images and captivating narration. Death is universal, but the human response to death varies widely. In Western society, death is usually medicalized and taboo, and kept apart from the world of the living, while in much of the rest of the world, and for much of human history, death has commonly been far more integrated into peoples’ daily existence, and human remains are as much a reminder of life, memento vitae, as of death, memento mori. Through photos taken at more than 250 sites in thirty countries over a decade, Paul Koudounaris has captured death around the world. From Bolivia’s “festival of the little pug-nosed ones,” where skulls are festooned with flowers and given cigarettes to smoke and beanie hats to protect them from the weather to Indonesian families who dress mummies and include them in their household routines; from naturally preserved Buddhist monks and memorials to genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia to the dramatic climax of Europe’s great ossuaries, Memento Mori defies taboo to demonstrate how the dead continue to be present in the lives of people everywhere. 500+ color illustrations."


Book of the Day Posted Mar 31, 2015

Book of the day > Salt and Silver

Book of the day > Salt and Silver. Mack Books. "The book is published in connection with the exhibition of the same name at the Tate, the first exhibition in Britain devoted to salted paper prints, one of the earliest forms of photography. A uniquely British invention, unveiled by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, salt prints spread across the globe, creating a new visual language of the modern moment. Salt prints are the very first photographs on paper that still exist today. Made in the first twenty years of photography, they are the results of esoteric knowledge and skill. Individual, sometimes unpredictable, and ultimately magical, the chemical capacity to ‘fix a shadow’ on light sensitive paper, coated in silver salts, was believed to be a kind of alchemy, where nature drew its own picture. This revolutionary technique transformed subjects from still lifes, portraits, landscapes and scenes of daily life into images with their own specific aesthetic: a soft, luxurious effect particular to this photographic process. The few salt prints that survive are seldom seen due to their fragility, and so this exhibition, a collaboration with the Wilson Centre for Photography, is a singular opportunity to see the rarest and best early photographs of this type in the world.
Salt and Silver brings together over 100 plates drawn from the Tate's Wilson Centre for Photography, accompanied by two roundtable discus- sions with curators, academics, historians and collectors from world renowned institutions. Encompassing many of the great works of the period, the publication includes prints by Edouard Baldus, Louis Blanquart-Evrard, Mathew Brady, Charles Clifford, Louis De Clercq, Maxime Du Camp, Roger Fenton, Jean-Baptiste Frenet, Charles Hugo, David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, Calvert Richard Jones, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, Charles Marville, Felix Nadar, Charles Negre, Felice Beato, Auguste Salzmann, William Henry Fox Talbot, Felix Teynard and Linnaeus Tripe."
Events Posted Mar 30, 2015

SATURDAY - Book Signing! Ed Templeton & Thomas Campbell

Come! Meet the men, the myths, the legends, Thomas Campbell & Ed Templeton! Saturday April 4th, 4-6pm at Arcana. Questions? Comments? Pre-orders? Just want to chit chat? Sales@arcanabooks.com or 310-458-1499. See you on Saturday!

Book of the Day Posted Mar 27, 2015

Book of the day > Psychedelic Sex

Book of the day > Psychedelic Sex. Taschen. “How men's magazines turned hot and hippy between 1967–1972. In a brief golden span between 1967 and 1972, the sexual revolution collided with recreational drug exploration to create "psychedelic sex." While the baby boomers blew their minds and danced naked in the streets, men’s magazine publishers attempted to visually recreate the wonders of LSD, project them on a canvas of nubile hippie flesh, and dish it up to men dying for a taste of free love.
Way Out, Groovie, Where It’s At—each magazine title vied to convince the straight audience it offered the most authentic flower power sex trip, complete with mind-bending graphics and all-natural hippie hotties. Along the way hippies joined in the production, since what could be groovier than earning bread in your birthday suit?
At its height, psychedelic sex encompassed posters, tabloids, comics, and newsstand magazines, but the most far-out examples of all were the glossy magazines from California, center of both hippie culture and the budding American porn industry. It’s these sexy, silly reminders of peace, love, and pudenda we celebrate in Psychedelic Sex. So put on your beads, tune up your sitar, and let the love-in begin! “
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