Book of the Day Posted Aug 27, 2022

Book of the Day > Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear

● Purchase ● Encompassing photography, installation, print media, video and more, this publication is the most comprehensive account of Tillmans’ wide-ranging career to date
 
A visionary creator and intrepid polymath, Wolfgang Tillmans unites formal inventiveness with an ethical orientation that attends to the most pressing issues of life today. While his work transcends the bounds of any single artistic discipline, he is best known for his wide-ranging photographic output. From trenchant documents of social movements to windowsill still lifes, ecstatic images of nightlife to cameraless abstractions, sensitive portraits to architectural studies, astronomical phenomena to intimate nudes, he has explored seemingly every genre of photography imaginable, continually experimenting with how to make new pictures and deepen the viewer’s experience.
 
Published in conjunction with a major exhibition of Tillmans’ work at the Museum of Modern Art, this copiously illustrated volume surveys four decades of the artist’s career. An outstanding group of writers offer diverse essays addressing key threads of his multifaceted practice, and a new text by Tillmans himself elucidates the distinctive methodology behind his system of presenting photographs. Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear grants readers new insight into the work of an artist who has not only changed the way photography is exhibited but pointed contemporary art in dynamic new directions.
Book of the Day Posted Aug 18, 2022

Book of the Day > Joan Albert: Family Photographs

● Purchase ● Joan Albert, 1943-2012, created a remarkable body of work over a short period of time from the 1970s through the early 1990s in Massachusetts.
 
Her intimate photographs of her growing sons are filled with emotion, humor, and the obsessions of teenage and pre-teenage boys of at the tail end of the last century. Alberts 4 x 5” view camera portraits of her parents, friends and neighbors with their children are similarly poignant and richly detailed, showing the complexity and intensity of parent-child relation- ships.
 
This book, edited by the American artist Sage Sohier, and with hand painted typography by Tamara Shopsin is the first time that Albert's beautiful and compassionate work can be viewed in its entirety.
Book of the Day Posted Aug 17, 2022

Book of the Day > Daniel Jack Lyons: Like a River

● Purchase ● An anthropological exploration of identity, transformation and coming-of-age amongst marginalized communities in the heart of the Amazon.
 
Daniel Jack Lyons’ debut monograph continues the American artist’s long-term commitments to visualizing the social and political rights of under-represented communities. Initially from a background of social and medical anthropology, Lyons began working in the Amazon under the umbrella of Casa do Rio, a community-based organization that celebrates and supports the cultural lives of teenagers and young people living in the depths of the Amazon. Lyons particularly visualizes and empowers the trans and queer communities of the region, exploring how deep indigenous traditions and modern identity politics meet in a celebratory, safe space, deep in the lush canopies and vegetation of the rainforest.
 
Lyons’ empowering images celebrate the perennial coming-of-age impulses to express and affirm one’s individuality, resilient here in the Amazon against a toxic mix of environmental degradation, violence, and discrimination. As another generation passes through the quotidian rites and rituals of adolescence, Lyons asks: what sort of world will they inhabit, and how much autonomy will they have over it?
Book of the Day Posted Aug 13, 2022

Book of the Day > Piet Mondrian: Mondrian Evolution

● Purchase ● Celebrating Mondrian's journey from Dutch landscape painter to pioneer of lively, hard-edged abstraction
 
Published on the occasion of the Dutch artist’s 150th birthday, Mondrian Evolution celebrates the multifaceted work and artistic development of Piet Mondrian. The artist cemented his place in the art historical canon with his geometric compositions characterized by black lines cast against white surfaces partially filled by the primary colors blue, red and yellow. Indelible as they are, these compositions comprise only a portion of Mondrian’s expansive oeuvre. The artist moved through various formal evolutions, corresponding to his various geographical residences, before he arrived at his signature minimalist abstract style. After his classical training in figurative painting, Mondrian departed for Paris, where he immersed himself in the avant-garde currents energizing the city; Cubism, in particular, stimulated his imagination. Taking the movement as a point of departure, Mondrian developed Neo-Plasticism, a nonrepresentational “pure plastic art,” which he believed to be the pathway to universal beauty.
 
This monograph diligently traces the artist’s progression from landscape painter to abstractionist trailblazer—and all the stops in between. Each chapter homes in on a specific motif within Mondrian’s oeuvre, including windmills, dunes, the sea, farms reflected in the water and plants in various forms of abstraction.
Book of the Day Posted Aug 12, 2022

Book of the Day > Football: Designing the Beautiful Game

● Purchase ● The design story of soccer, from stadium planning to team badges
 
Soccer is unquestionably the world’s most popular sport, with a dedicated fan base and truly international reach. It is also a significant industry, with European soccer alone being estimated to hold a value of $30 billion in 2016. How did soccer evolve to be such a significant part of our cultural landscape, and what role has design played in shaping the sport?
 
This catalog—the first of its kind—explores the design story behind soccer, unpicking how design has been used to push the game to its technical and emotional limits. From the master-planning of the world’s most significant stadiums to the innovative materials used in today’s boots, the graphic design of team badges and the grassroots initiatives pushing back against the sport’s commercialization, this book provides a rare insight into the people and processes that have made soccer what it is today.
 
Accompanying the Design Museum exhibition of the same name, this book features informed and sometimes provocative contributions from figures across the world of football and design, from analyst Statman Dave and broadcaster Martin Tyler to architect Jacques Herzog and Adidas vice president Sam Handy.
Book of the Day Posted Aug 11, 2022

Book of the Day > Ruth Asawa: Citizen of the Universe

● Purchase ● Ruth Asawa is an artist of vital importance to modern art. Ruth Asawa: Citizen of the Universe, which accompanies the first public exhibition of Asawa’s work in Europe, introduces readers to Asawa’s work, including her signature hanging sculptures in looped and tied wire, and her pioneering education practice. It positions her expansive ethos—her self-identification as “a citizen of the universe” and belief that art education can be life enriching for everyone—as a catalyst for creative forward-thinking in the twenty-first century.
 
Focusing on a dynamic and formative period in her life from 1945 to 1980, this book gives readers a unique experience of the artist and her work, exploring her legacy and positioning her as an abstract sculptor crucial to American modernism. It is a wonderful celebration of her holistic integration of art, education, and community engagement, through which she called for a revolutionary and inclusive vision of art’s role in society.
Book of the Day Posted Aug 10, 2022

Book of the Day > Albarrán Cabrera: Photographic Syntax

● Purchase ● Photography duo Albarrán Cabrera uses photography as a tool to investigate reality. The images that make up their latest book ‘Photography Syntax’, function as the notebooks of their philosophical research. Together with the texts, the photographs testify to the use of photographic processes as a means of going deeper into the reasons and thoughts behind the images.
Events Posted Aug 09, 2022

Eric Kroll Book Signing and Vintage Photographic Print Sale Saturday 8/20, 4:00 to 6:00 PM!

Please join us for a book signing and vintage photographic print sale with Eric Kroll for "The New York Years, 1971 To 1994" at Arcana Saturday, August 20th, 4:00 to 6:00 PM.
 
Due to overwhelming early response, only thirty copies of "The New York Years..." remain from our initial imported supply which we must reserve for those attending Saturday's event. We regret that there will be no more advance sales either by phone or website before then. If you cannot attend and would like to purchase a signed copy, please email us with your request. If there are copies available following the weekend, we will respond to you in the order we received your inquiry. Otherwise, we have another order on the way due to arrive early next month which we will arrange to have Mr. Kroll sign and make for sale once again.
 
As for this unique one-day sale of Mr. Kroll's vintage New York photographs, the images range from 8 x 10 to 16 by 20", with most being framed. They are priced between $750.00 and $2,000.00. See the selection below for some of these classic pictures that feature Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol - and a selection of Factory Superstars, David Bowie, James Van Der Zee, Futura 2000, Grace Jones, David Wojnarowicz, and many, many more. There will be additional prints for sale beyond these displayed at the event. Want to own one and cannot attend? Please email us with any questions!
 

Various sizes, L to R - Nam June Paik, Civilian Warfare Gallery artists,
Leslie Macayza at Kenny Scharf's Fun Gallery exhibition, Futura 2000,
Patti Astor at her Fun Gallery Keith Haring exhibition, Debbie Harry x 2,
Robert Mapplethorpe, Luis Frangella paints a picture
 
11 x 14" - James Van Der Zee and Donna Mussenden, Secretary on her lunch break,
Dondi
 
14 x 11" - Todd Rundgren, The Dead Boys' Stiv Bators, Leslie Macayza
 
14 x 11" - Susan Smith, Andy Warhol, David Bowie
 
14 x 11" - R. Crumb and Gloria, Keith Haring with Patti Astor at his Fun
Gallery exhibition (with an original Eric Kroll drawing), Andy Warhol at
The Factory
 
14 x 11" - Debbie Harry x 2, Candida Royale
 
10 x 8" - John Sex, Times Square sex worker, Debra Martin - New York
transsexual
 
10 x 8" - Futura 2000 at work, Grace Jones, Susan Smith
 
Eric Kroll is a name familiar to anyone with even the vaguest interest in contemporary photography. His first book, Sex Objects: An American Documentary, from 1977 has attained cult-like status. He has gone on to publish several high-profile, best-selling books with houses like Taschen, and his work has been featured in countless magazines over the years.
 
His brand new publication, The New York Years 1971 To 1994 from Timeless Edition in Paris  showcases a side of his work that until now has not been widely publicized. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Eric found himself at the very heart of a cultural eruption in NYC. With his camera ever at the ready he documented the work and private pursuits of cultural movers and shakers from the Rolling Stones to The Dead Boys, Blondie, Warhol, Basquiat, and Haring. Madonna, Kenneth Anger, Grace Jones, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, and too many regulars from the Max's Kansas City, Studio 54, and East Village Art Scene demimonde to name feature in this stunning collection of mostly never-before seen photos. From its sleazy underbelly to the highest-brow art galleries, Eric Kroll invites you to bygone Manhattan at the height of its decadence and cultural importance. The New York Years is a unique book, a journey, an experience!
Events Posted Aug 09, 2022

Book Signing + Discussion with Peter Fetterman for "The Power of Photography" This Saturday, August 13th, 4:00 to 6:00 PM at Arcana!

This Saturday, August 13th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM, renowned gallerist Peter Fetterman will engage in a lively discussion here with Arcana owner Lee Kaplan regarding his career, his love of the photographic medium, and Peter's lovely and thought-provoking new book, The Power of Photography.

If you cannot attend but would like to purchase a book signed by Peter Fetterman please place your order here or call us at 310-458-1499.

The power of photography lies in its ability to ignite emotions across barriers of language and culture. This selection of iconic images, compiled by pioneering collector and gallerist Peter Fetterman, celebrates the photograph’s unique capacity for sensibility. Mr. Fetterman runs one of the leading commercial galleries in the world, and has championed the photographic arts for over thirty years. During the long months of lockdown, he ‘exhibited’ one photograph per day, accompanied by inspirational text, quotes and poetry. This digital collection struck a chord with followers from around the world. The Power of Photography presents one hundred and twenty outstanding images from the series along with Peter’s insightful words. This carefully curated selection offers an inspiring overview of the medium while paying homage to masters of the art. From the bizarre Boschian fantasies of Melvin Sokolsky to the haunting humanity of Ansel Adams’ family portraits; from Miho Kajioka’s interpretation of traditional Japanese aesthetics of to the joyful everyday scenes of Evelyn Hofer; from rare interior shots by famed nude photographer Ruth Bernhard to Bruce Davidson’s wistful depiction of young men playing ballgames on a street; this book gathers some of the most unique and heartening photographs from the 20th century. Each image is a time capsule, offering us a glimpse into days gone past. Yet each photograph also speaks of tranquility, peace, and hope for the future."

Book of the Day Posted Aug 05, 2022

Book of the Day > Harry Benson: Paul

● Purchase ● A personal portrait of Paul McCartney by Harry Benson
 
Harry Benson began photographing the young Paul McCartney in 1964, a pivotal year for the Beatles when they took America by storm, toured the world, and made their movie debut with A Hard Day’s Night—all documented by the affable Scotsman. And when the Fab Four called it quits, it was Benson who was afforded intimate access to Paul and wife Linda, as Paul forged a new path creatively and personally.
 
Through Benson’s lens, Paul traces the evolution of its namesake as an icon, performer, and a devoted family man. We follow the musician at the height of his fame with the Beatles; in the recording studio with Linda and their band, Wings; with the family; behind the scenes and on stage during the 1975–76 “Wings Over America” tour; dancing the night away at a star-studded party on the Queen Mary to celebrate the band’s newest album; and with Linda on the couple’s farm in the U.K. in the early 1990s—a fittingly soft landing after so many years of flying high.
 
Featuring more than 100 color and black-and-white images by the legendary photojournalist, many never seen before, this collection is a window onto a one-of-a-kind artist, one who has remained somewhat enigmatic despite nearly a lifetime of being in the limelight.
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