Book of the Day > Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Film Stills
● Purchase ● A visual distillate of Fassbinder’s art, with key stills from each of his movies, an essay by German film historian Hans Helmut Prinzler, and a birthday message by John Waters.
Book of the Day
Posted May 01, 2021
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 30, 2021
Book of the Day > The Worm
● Purchase ● The Worm showcases over 200 images from NASA’s archives chosen with one simple criteria: each photograph must feature ‘the worm’.
Together, these images demonstrate not only the extent to which Danne & Blackburn’s 1975 NASA Graphic Program had been implemented before being rescinded in 1992, but also the incredible achievements by NASA personnel.
The unfinished final chapter of the book will showcase the return of the worm, as it flies once again aboard a SpaceX rocket on May 30, 2020.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 29, 2021
Book of the Day > Miguel Trillo: Madrid in the Early 80s
● Purchase ● Portraits and documents of Spain’s countercultural movida movement, from a rare cult ’80s zine
Spanish artist Miguel Trillo (born 1954) is considered one of the primary documentarians of La movida madrileña, the countercultural youth movement that sprang to life after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. In the early 1980s, he compiled his photographs of the music scene—featuring portraits of mods, punks and rockers, among others—into his first zine, Rockocó. His second publication, Callejones y avenidas, focused on what Trillo himself describes as “calm portraits of restless nights,” continuing to flesh out the various cliques and communities that existed as part of the underground cultural ecosystem.
This publication gathers the original photographs and models from the two zines, and provides readers with a glimpse into a fascinating moment of hedonism and creativity.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 28, 2021
Book of the Day > Ray Johnson c/o
● Purchase ● An engaging and scholarly introduction to the wide-ranging work of a pioneering 20th-century artist
Ray Johnson (1927–1995) was a renowned maker of meticulous collages whose works influenced movements including Pop Art, Fluxus, and Conceptual Art. Emerging from the interdisciplinary community of artists and poets at Black Mountain College, Johnson was extraordinarily adept at using social interaction as an artistic endeavor and founded a mail art network known as the New York Correspondence School.
Drawing on the vast collection of Johnson’s work at the Art Institute of Chicago, this volume gives new shape to our understanding of his artistic practice and features hundreds of pieces that include artist’s books, collages, drawings, mail art, and performance documentation. In keeping with Johnson’s democratic, rhizomatic, and antihierarchical ethos, this indispensable resource on the artist’s oeuvre contains 700 illustrations, many of them never before published, and twenty-one short essays by various contributors that allow readers to dip into and out of the book in a nonlinear manner.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 27, 2021
Book of the Day > Print Punch: Artefacts from the Punch Card Computing Era
● Purchase ● Data used to be physical. In an era when 1s and 0s seem to hover above our heads, Print Punch returns to the heyday of the punch card—to a time when you could touch (and punch) data. The aesthetics of this early move towards automation represent a unique moment in our history, when we designed for machines instead of human beings. Rigorous constraints, inherent in punch card technology, unwittingly birthed a coherent design language: rhythm in grids, punched absences and presences, and the patterns in them dancing to their own machine logic. Now obsolete, punch cards were the primary method of data storage and processing from the 1890s until the late 1970s; spanning almost a century of ubiquitous utility, the artefacts of that era sit between these pages to be examined anew.
Miscellany
Posted Apr 24, 2021
Independent Bookstore Day 2021!
Now more than ever. It’s Independent Bookstore Day! If you're in Los Angeles, you are lucky to be in a buzzing, thriving hub of wonderful and diverse bookstores. In spite of the devastating tumult of 2020, we're still here! And new shops are opening, others have moved and expanded! It's a vibrant landscape - take advantage of it.
As the @americanbooksellers association succinctly put it: "Buy books curated by a real person, not by a creepy algorithm that wants you to buy deodorant."
Please visit, call, or shop the websites of our many illustrious colleagues today, tomorrow, and throughout the year: @aliasbookseast, @artbookhwla, @booksoup, @chevaliersbooks, @counterpointrecordsandbooks, @despairbooks, @dieselbookstore, @esowonbooks, @hennesseyingalls, @iliadbookshop, @lalibreria, @larryedmunds1938, @lastbookstorela, @librosschmibros, @malikbooks, @nowservingla, @oofbooks, @reparations.club, @ therippedbodice, @thesalteaters, @theshq, @sideshowbooks, @skylightbooks, @storiesbooksandcafe, @thesedays.la @theundergroundbookstore, @villagewellcc , @vromansbookstore, and so many more.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 23, 2021
Book of the Day > We Are Here: Visionaries Of Color Transforming The Art World
● Purchase ● Profiles and portraits of 50 artists and art entrepreneurs challenging the status quo in the art world
Confidently curated by Jasmin Hernandez, the dynamic founder of Gallery Gurls, We Are Here presents the bold and nuanced work of Black and Brown visionaries transforming the art world. Centering BIPOC, with a particular focus on queer, trans, nonbinary, and BIWOC, this collection features fifty of the most influential voices in New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. Striking photography of art, creative spaces, materials, and the subjects themselves is paired with intimate interviews that engage with each artist and influencer, delving into their creative process and unpacking how each subject actively works to create a more radically inclusive world across the entire art ecosystem. A celebration of compelling intergenerational creatives making their mark, We Are Here shows a path for all who seek to see themselves in art and culture.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 22, 2021
Book of the Day > Liquid Horizon: Meditations on the Surf and Sea
● Purchase ● Sensual, meditative, and powerfully evocative photographic studies of the ocean by professional surfer Danny Fuller.
Danny Fuller's work as a photographer and artist is best understood through his thirty years as a professional surfer. Fuller who is known for riding the waves of North Shore Oahu's famous Pipeline and Maui's treacherous Jaws sees and experiences the ocean in ways intimate and infinite.
Fuller's nocturnal seascapes of the worlds most savage and beautiful waves, all captured exclusively by moonlight with slow exposures, share the soulful beauty of the ocean, in meditative, painterly studies of subtle changes of light and color. In the tradition of artists drawn to the sea for inspiration, Fuller expresses a surfer's deep spiritual connection to the ocean and to the meaning of consequence in surfing. The sensual allure of blue mixed with the ominous presence of water, whose scale is epic, reminds us just how minuscule and insignificant we are relative to the powers of the sea.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 21, 2021
Book of the Day > Peter Schlesinger: Eight Days in Yemen
● Purchase ● An unprecedented document of one of the Middle East’s most extraordinary cultures
In 1976, Peter Schlesinger (born 1948) visited the Yemen Arab Republic (as the northern part of Yemen was then called). He was accompanying the photographer Eric Boman, who was on a fashion shoot assignment for a French magazine. Yemen had been closed to foreigners for many years and in the interest of encouraging more tourism the government decided to court media outlets. Over the course of his eight-day stay, Schlesinger took hundreds of photographs documenting what he saw as he traveled from the capital, Sanaa, and on through the northern city of Sa’da.
Forty-two years later, as he began making this book, Schlesinger shared these images with Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University and an expert on the Middle East. He was taken aback at their existence, since documentation of Yemen in the ’70s is so rare. Haykel provides an enriching introduction that brings to life the world Schlesinger captured.
Book of the Day
Posted Apr 20, 2021
Book of the Day > High On Design: The New Cannabis Culture
● Purchase ● The cannabis industry has become a thriving activity. Consuming the plant and using its derivatives have become legal in several countries and paved the way for a new generation of design-savvy and diverse consumers and entrepreneurs. High on Design showcases the new brands, designs, and creators behind this revolution. Meet the creative minds behind Gossamer, a biannual print magazine for casual weed smokers and curious mind. Learn everything you need to know about pot and weed as a medium for cultural understanding with Mia Park and Dae Lim, creators of Sundae School. Expand your culinary horizon with Michelin-Starred chef, Claus Henriksen who will give you an insight into his haute cannabis cuisine and gourmet herbs. Have a look inside Broccoli, a female-run magazine about cannabis culture and discover the most exciting cannabis businesses around the world from High Road, an award-winning dispensary design studio to Tokyo Smoke, a Canadian cannabis retailer.
While reflecting on the novel aesthetics and trends of contemporary cannabis culture, High on Design also gives a profound view of the phenomenon regarding politics, history, legalization, and society. This is your guide to the best brands, the most stylish dispensaries, the slickest products, and the most creative entrepreneurs.