Book of the Day Posted Mar 04, 2021

Book of the Day > Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love

● Purchase ● In her most personal book to date, Yayoi Kusama brings us into her private world through poetic recollections, giving insight into her creative process and the essential role language plays in her paintings, sculptures, and daily life.
 
With a new focus on Kusama’s use of language, this book features an impressive overview of her poetry, which the artist creates alongside her work in other mediums. Highlighting the importance of words to the artist, the book draws special attention to the captivating poetic titles of her paintings, such as in I WOULD LIKE TO SHOW YOU THE INFINITE SPLENDOR OF STARDUST IN THE UNIVERSE and FIGURE OF THE MIDNIGHT DARKNESS OF THE UNIVERSE THAT I DEDICATED ALL MY HEART. These visionary titles are a quintessential part of Kusama’s eye-catching artworks, but also hold their own as unique aphorisms and appealing statements of cosmic spirituality. The poetry collected here touches on Kusama’s personal trials, her human ideals, and her heroic pursuit of art above all else.
 
Centered around EVERY DAY I PRAY FOR LOVE, Kusama’s acclaimed exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, this book features more than 300 pages of new paintings, sculptures, and Infinity Mirrored Rooms. It also includes photographs of Kusama over time, offering a unique visual timeline of this iconic artist.
Book of the Day Posted Mar 03, 2021

Book of the Day > Cooking As Though You Might Cook Again

● Purchase ● Cooking As Though You Might Cook Again invites us to cook with our senses and to work with the passage of time. Licht’s lyrical recipes turn our attention away from strict measurements and towards the sights and smells of our own pantries, our own fridges, and our own imaginations. A new book that feels oddly like a familiar classic. A reminder of the pleasure and the importance of living with what we have.
Book of the Day Posted Mar 02, 2021

Book of the Day > India One and India Two

● Purchase India One or India Two ● One of a pair of a zines by actor/director/writer/standup comic Aziz Ansari. India One features photos from India. India Two features street vendors in India.

Book of the Day Posted Feb 26, 2021

Book of the Day > Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night

● Purchase ● Dramatically reinventing the lineage of Goya, Sargent and Manet, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye imbues the Black subjects in her paintings with atmospheric grace and elegance
 
Taking inspiration from the techniques of historic European portraiture, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s oil paintings could almost be from a much older era if it were not for the contemporary details of the Black subjects that populate her work. Though her subjects are people conjured in her imagination, Yiadom-Boakye imbues her portraits with a near-tangible spirit through her deliberate brush strokes and rich dark tones.
 
The result is paintings that seem to exist outside of time while still remaining grounded in reality. This lavishly illustrated volume of nearly 80 paintings and drawings—some of which have never been exhibited before—accompanies the first major survey of Yiadom-Boakye’s work, shown at Tate Britain. In addition to new fiction writing by the artist, this publication includes in-depth thematic essays on Yiadom-Boakye’s artistic development, reflecting the dual aspects of the artist’s career as both a painter and a writer and offering an intimate insight into her creative process.
Book of the Day Posted Feb 24, 2021

Book of the Day > Joan Mitchell

● Purchase ● A sweeping retrospective exploring the oeuvre of an incandescent artist, revealing the ways that Mitchell expanded painting beyond Abstract Expressionism as well as the transatlantic contexts that shaped her
 
Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) was fearless in her experimentation, creating works of unparalleled beauty, strength, and emotional intensity. This gorgeous book unfolds the story of an artistic master of the highest order, revealing the ways she expanded abstract painting and illuminating the transatlantic contexts that shaped her. Lavish illustrations cover the full arc of her artistic practice, from her exceptional New York paintings of the early 1950s to the majestic multipanel compositions she made in France later in her career. Signature works are represented here along with rarely seen paintings, works on paper, artist’s sketchbooks, and photographs of Mitchell’s life, social circle, and surroundings.
 
Featuring scholarly texts, in-depth essays, and artistic and literary responses, this book is organized in ten chronological chapters. Each chapter centers on a closely related suite of paintings, illuminating a shifting inner landscape colored by experience, sensation, memory, and a deep sense of place. Presenting groundbreaking research and a variety of perspectives on her art, life, and connections to poetry and music, this unprecedented volume is an essential reference for Mitchell’s admirers and those just discovering her work.
Book of the Day Posted Feb 23, 2021

Book of the Day > Los Angeles Today: City of Dreams: Architecture and Design

● Purchase ● The time is right for a fresh look at this incomparable sunny city. Longtime Angeleno Tim Street-Porter chronicles today's vibrant buildings, coastline, and gardens of this glamorous global metropolis.
 
Visit Los Angeles with a photographer who knows how to get the lighting right to highlight the spectacular architecture of the city. Stylish museums, such as the Broad, and a flourishing Arts District illustrate the explosive art scene, while Hollywood's Chateau Marmont and the historic Beverly Hills neighborhood add a chic dynamism. Across town, Culver City, home to the tech industry, features blocks of futuristic architecture by Eric Owen Moss. The modernist homes by Richard Neutra and John Lautner, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, are shown against dramatic backdrops of sky and sea. The visual sweep of this oversize book also encompasses the Los Angeles of film and television.
 
Los Angeles is a city of dreams, and Los Angeles Today is a glorious portrait of the city in its infinite variety.
Events Posted Feb 23, 2021

Printed Matter's Virtual Art Book Fair 2021!

PRINTED MATTER VIRTUAL ART BOOK FAIR 2021
February 24—28, 2021
Free and open to the public
 
The Printed Matter Art Book Fair has gone virtual! While we will miss seeing your faces at MoCA this year, we are excited to be participating in this exciting new platform.

The PMVABF kicks off on Wednesday, 2/24, with an opening program which starts at 4:00 PM EST.
 

Visit pmvabf.org to see the full lineup of performances/events and exhibitors.


If you've missed the fair and would like to see some of thes things we offered, you can see them on our website here.
 
Please note that our site is in no way comprehensively reflective of our stock, it only represents about 2% of the books we have, so if you’re looking for something in particular, let us know and we’ll search our shelves and boxes for you!
 
And if you live in or near Los Angeles, visit us in person for hundreds of thousands of treasures and a book fair all year long! 
 
We're open Tuesday through Sunday, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM.
Book of the Day Posted Feb 20, 2021

Book of the Day > Deanna Templeton: What She Said

● Purchase ● 'All I look forward to is the weekends, and sometimes they suck just as bad as the week does. God it’s so god damn boring!! When I wake up in the morning I feel like I’m 99 years old!! I’m so tired and lazy and unhappy. I’m only 15 years old, what’s wrong with me, why am I so UNhappy? This world is so fucked! People are so fucked! I’m so fucked or as my brother would say "Your a freak!"'
 
What She Said takes its title from a song by The Smiths: “What she said was sad / But then, all the rejection she’s had / To pretend to be happy / Could only be idiocy.” The work originates in portraits Deanna Templeton made on the streets of the US, Europe, Australia and Russia, in which she captured women in their adolescence: punks and outcasts whose ripped jeans and tights, tattoos, and hairstyles stand as testament to this transitional moment in their lives as they navigate the intensity of teenage life. Templeton grew up in an ostensibly different environment in 1980s youth, but she recognised in them something of the universality of female adolescence, as they struggled with similar disappointments and challenges she encountered as a young woman. The book combines these modern portraits with gig flyers and Templeton’s own teenage journal entries from the mid to late 80s, in which the familiar experience of growing up is laid bare in all its antagonism, humour and pathos.
Book of the Day Posted Feb 18, 2021

Book of the Day > The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop

● Purchase ● An illustrated highlight reel of more than 100 women in rap who have helped shape the genre and eschewed gender norms in the process
 
The Motherlode highlights more than 100 women who have shaped the power, scope, and reach of rap music, including pioneers like Roxanne Shanté, game changers like Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott, and current reigning queens like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, and Lizzo—as well as everyone who came before, after, and in between. Some of these women were respected but not widely celebrated. Some are impossible not to know. Some of these women have stood on their own; others were forced into templates, compelled to stand beside men in big rap crews. Some have been trapped in a strange critical space between respected MC and object. They are characters, caricatures, lyricists, at times both feminine and explicit. This book profiles each of these women, their musical and career breakthroughs, and the ways in which they each helped change the culture of rap. Published by Abrams.
Book of the Day Posted Feb 17, 2021

Book of the Day > Ten Cities

● Purchase ● A nocturnal journey through local histories of clubbing in Nairobi, Cairo, Kyiv, Johannesburg, Berlin, Naples, Luanda, Lagos, Bristol, Lisbon, 1960–Present
 
The image of the DJ dragging his record case through international “non-places” and deejaying in clubs around the globe is a contemporary cliché. But these club scenes have rich, geographically differentiated local histories and cultures. This book expands the focus beyond the North Atlantic clubbing axis of Detroit–Chicago–Manchester–Berlin.
 
It looks at ten club capitals in Africa and Europe, reporting on different scenes in Bristol, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kyiv, Lagos, Lisbon, Launda, Nairobi and Naples. The local music stories, the scenes, the subcultures and their global networks are reconstructed in 21 essays and photo sequences.
 
The tale they tell is one of clubs as laboratories of otherness, in which people can experiment with new ways of being and assert their claim to the city. Ten Cities is a nocturnal, sound-driven journey through ten social and urban stories from 1960 through to the present.
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