Book of the Day Posted May 28, 2022

Book of the Day > The Clash: All the Albums All the Songs

● Purchase ● Established in 1976 at the fore London’s punk rock insurgence, The Clash would outlast their peers while creating some of the most influential albums in rock ’n’ roll history. Author Martin Popoff dissects each of the Clash’s ninety-one studio tracks, examining the circumstances that led to their creation, the recording processes, the historical contexts and more. In addition, introductory essays set the scene for the band’s six studio releases (including the double LP London Calling and the triple Sandinista!) and feature sidebars detailing studios, release dates, personnel, and more. Illustrated with rare performance and offstage photography, along with images of 7-inch singles sleeves and gig posters, the resulting volume is a fitting tribute to the foursome whose staunch political stance and groundbreaking amalgam of punk, rockabilly, reggae, and hip-hop earned the title “The Only Band That Matters.”
Book of the Day Posted May 27, 2022

Book of the Day > Please Send to Real Life: Ray Johnson Photographs

● Purchase ● A widely connected pioneer of Pop and mail art, Ray Johnson was described as ‘New York’s most famous unknown artist.’ Best known for his dense, allusive collages, he stopped exhibiting in 1991, but his output did not diminish. Between 1992 and 1994, using 137 disposable cameras, he created a large body of work that is only now coming to light. Staging his artworks in settings near his home in Locust Valley, Long Island — parking lots, sidewalks, beaches, cemeteries — Johnson made photographs that make the world of everyday ‘real life’ a part of his art. Within a few months, he devised a large new freestanding format for the simplified collages he began calling the ‘movie stars’ of his camera tableaux. When he swam to his death at sea on 13 January 1995, Johnson left behind a vast archive that included over three thousand of the late photographs. What he called his ‘new career as a photographer,’ which makes its debut in print here, marked the close of a romance with the camera that had spanned four decades of relentless invention.
Book of the Day Posted May 25, 2022

Book of the Day > Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound

● Purchase ● The first museum survey of the visionary polymath from Côte d'Ivoire
 
The Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré created an unmistakable and entirely unique body of work, first as a writer and linguist, and then in a dazzling series of colorful drawings on a multitude of subjects, from his native Bété culture to the urban milieu of Abidjan to the all-encompassing themes of fraternity, equality and global understanding. All but unknown even in his home country of Côte d’Ivoire, Bouabré found international recognition in 1989 when he participated in the landmark Paris exhibition Magiciens de la terre, and his work has since been the subject of solo and group exhibitions around the world.
 
Published to accompany the first museum survey of Bouabré’s work in North America, this catalog offers a vivid account of the artist’s long and multifaceted career, including a detailed chronology of his life and reproductions of more than six hundred of his drawings. An essay by curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi introduces Bouabré to a new audience, illuminating his significance as both an important African creator and one of the most intriguing artists of the 20th century.
Book of the Day Posted May 24, 2022

Book of the Day > Judith Joy Ross: Photographs 1978–2015

● Purchase ● Judith Joy Ross: Photographs 1978–2015 is an illuminating retrospective that explores the life and career of a revered American photographer, illustrated by two hundred of her images, many never before seen or published.
 
The work of Judith Joy Ross marks a watershed in the lineage of the photographic portrait. Her pictures—unpretentious, quietly penetrating, startling in their transparency—consistently achieve the capacity to glimpse the past, present, and perhaps even the future of the individuals who stand before her lens. Adolescents swim at a local municipal park, ordinary people are at work and play. From immigrants and refugees, to tech workers and students, military reservists and civilians—all are incisively rendered with equal tenderness in Ross’s black-and-white, large-format portraits.
 
Published alongside the largest exhibition to feature Ross’s work to date, and drawn from her extensive archive of photographs made over the span of more than thirty-five years, Judith Joy Ross: Photographs 1978–2015 encompasses the best work of this influential photographer.
Book of the Day Posted May 21, 2022

Book of the Day > Poetic Practical: The Unrealized Work of Chris Burden

● Purchase ● Poetic Practical offers the first examination of Chris Burden's unrealized projects, featuring never-before-seen archival materials and newly commissioned photography of Burden's studio and property. This extensively illustrated book includes 435 images, featuring never-before-seen archival materials and newly commissioned photography of Burden's studio and property. Burden's work, whether realized or unrealized, was fundamentally driven by a speculative approach to artistic production, one that compelled him to interrogate the physical limits of his own body, social mores, institutional capabilities, and scientific forces. Above all, his work repeatedly sought to test the thresholds of presumed impossibility, making his unrealized works the ultimate example of such measures. The sixty-seven artworks included in this publication offer a unique and unprecedented perspective on the life and working process of this formidable artist.
Book of the Day Posted May 19, 2022

Book of the Day > Karlheinz Weinberger: Mediterraneo

● Purchase ● The photographs presented in this volume carry a special status in the extensive oeuvre of Karlheinz Weinberger. To this day, Weinberger is best known for his photographs of the Halbstarke and of Rockers, as well as for his nudes. A different aspect of Weinberger’s work was already highlighted in the previous volume on Sports, showcasing photographs of wrestlers, football players, gymnasts, and body builders. This volume offers just as exciting a discovery, assembling the photographs that he took on several trips to the Mediterranean. A few of them are well known–such as the picture of the Esso man, which has reached cult status–but most have never been published before the release of this book.
 
Many of the photographs shown were shot in and around Agrigento (Palma di Montechiaro, San Leone). Over the years, Weinberger expanded his travels to include the Lipari Islands and Lampedusa, Lecce and Naples. Twice he visited the other side of the Mediterranean Basin: he went to Tangier in 1963 and 1964.
 
His interest was not limited to men and their physiques, however. He also documented the traditional life of the South, in the cities and the country-side, at the ports and the beaches, often imbuing these subjects with a filmic quality reminiscent of Visconti’s La Terra Trema (1948) and Pasolini’s Accattone (1961).
Book of the Day Posted May 18, 2022

Book of the Day > Sandro Miller: Crowns -- My Hair, My Soul, My Freedom

● Purchase ● A photographic panorama of the creativity and variety of Black women's hairstyles
 
In Crowns: My Hair, My Soul, My Freedom American photographer Sandro Miller (born 1958) celebrates the social endurance, cultural heritage and self-expression of Black women through their hairstyles. In this series of portraits, each subject is posed in front of either a strikingly black or vibrant geometric background that serves to highlight the models’ skin tones and accentuates their ultra-stylized hair, whether a halo of bright gold curls or crimson locks swept into an elegant bun. Each image is based on the relevant model’s “hair story” and pays homage to her personal fashion sense, documenting the many unspoken ways in which Black women assert their autonomy through their physical appearance. In this project, Miller seeks to recognize and honor Black women’s creativity and beauty while celebrating their social endurance and cultural memory at the same time.
Book of the Day Posted May 17, 2022

Book of the Day > Barry McGee: Fuzz Gathering

● Purchase ● This zine by Barry McGee gathers a number of his own photographs, collages, and drawings to create a unique visual language composed of geometrical patterns and recurring symbols. It was published on the occasion of his exhibition towards the end of 2021 at the Perrotin Gallery in Paris. Born and educated in San Francisco, McGee produces works that are candid and insightful observations of modern society, but always with an emphasis on contributing to marginalised communities. He is associated with the Mission School, which emerged in the early 1990s and is primarily influenced by urban realism, graffiti, and American folk art, with a focus on social activism.
Miscellany Posted May 15, 2022

10 Years at Helms

Ten years ago today after an arduous move and months of building we finally re-opened our doors – in our beautiful "new" space here at Helms in Culver City. There aren’t enough thanks in the world to give to those that helped in this epic endeavor: our iiinnncccrrrredible staff, our amazing landlord and his team @helmsbakerydistrict, our esteemed architects @johnstonmarklee and @katrinterstegen, the design and building genius of @landlocd and their endless inspiration, commitment and non-stop hard work … We couldn’t be happier to have moved here – thank you for your love and support over the years! PS, Good luck to the little car company called “Tesla” that took over our old space in Santa Monica in 2012.
Book of the Day Posted May 14, 2022

Book of the Day > Johnston Marklee: A+U 614 2021:11

● Purchase ● This issue of a+u features the work of Johnston Marklee and Associates. Founded in 1998 and rooted in the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, their office has continuously sought dialogue with modern and contemporary art not only through clientele and project programs but also in design approach. A series of iconic houses quickly established the firm’s international acclaim, but in the past decade their projects have expanded greatly in scale and diversified in building type. The intense investigative nature that characterizes every project is often veiled behind playfulness and simplicity. What began as an “Architecture of Approximation” in the first decade of their practice eventuated in a body of work consisting of “Extremes and In-betweens,” as described in 2 essays written by Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee. Twenty-six key projects, ranging from houses and exhibitions to museums and institutions, are presented here alongside 8 thematic collages to convey the full range of Johnston Marklee’s works. Interspersed is a series of 12 commentaries by collaborators and colleagues, bringing the work of Johnston Marklee “to life with their interpretations.”

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