Book of the Day Posted Jul 01, 2021

Book of the Day > Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction

● Purchase ● A definitive survey on the Dada participant and pioneer of abstraction between art and craft, spanning her textiles, marionettes, stained glass, paintings and more
 
Accompanying the first retrospective of Taeuber-Arp’s work in the United States in 40 years, Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction is a comprehensive survey of this multifaceted abstract artist’s innovative and wide-ranging body of work. Her background in the applied arts and dance, her involvement in the Zurich Dada movement and her projects for architectural spaces were essential to her development of a uniquely versatile and vibrant abstract vocabulary. Through her artistic output and various professional alliances, Taeuber-Arp consistently challenged the historically constructed boundaries separating fine art from craft and design.
 
This richly illustrated catalog explores the artist’s interdisciplinary and cross-pollinating approach to abstraction through some 400 works, including textiles, beadwork, polychrome marionettes, architectural and interior designs, stained glass windows, works on paper, paintings and relief sculptures. It also features 15 essays that examine the full sweep of Taeuber-Arp’s career. Arranged into six chapters that follow the exhibition’s sections, these essays trace the progression of Taeuber-Arp’s creative production both chronologically and thematically. A comprehensive illustrated chronology, the first essay on Taeuber-Arp’s materials and techniques, and an exhibition checklist based on new research and analysis detail the expansive nature of Taeuber-Arp’s production.
In the News Posted Jul 01, 2021

A Continuous Lean

Wow, we find ourselves in very esteemed company on the A Continuous Lean list of the 125 best stores in the U.S.!
THANK YOU, @acontinuouslean for this honor and for the fantastic list. It's primarily for menswear, but "there are some book stores mixed in (because book shops need all of the help they can get)." True words. Many thanks for your ongoing support.

 

 

Book of the Day Posted Jun 30, 2021

Book of the Day > Mark Edward Harris: The People of the Forest

● Purchase ● In The People of the Forest, award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris focuses on orangutans, because, while the future for many species is uncertain, orangutans in the wild are hanging on by a particularly thin vine. Their populations have declined significantly due to habitat destruction in their native Sumatra and Borneo where forests give way to palm oil plantations. Long before genetic testing revealed an almost 97 percent DNA overlap between orangutans and humans, the similarities between the two species was noticed. “Orangutan” comes from the Malay word orang (people) and hutan (forest), hence the title for this book.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 29, 2021

Book of the Day > Ed Templeton: City Confessions #2: London

● Purchase ● “City Confessions #2 London is a mostly recent study on the city of London. Although some photos in this book go back over 20 years, the majority were taken over the past decade on numerous trips. Since the mid 1990’s, once or twice a year I find myself in London for a few days or weeks at a time and end up on long walks shooting photos with my Leica. The pictures in this book were chosen to highlight a particular shade of London I have always found interesting, Moments of weariness, furtive glances and subtle gestures within a densely populated city center as the swarms of people perform the ceremony of getting through another day.”
Events Posted Jun 28, 2021

Show & Tell with Jason E.C. Wright / Burnt Sienna Research Society!

Clear your schedule and tune into @arcanabooks Instagram this Wednesday (6/30), 5:00 PST we are delighted to host another monthly Instagram “Show & Tell” moderated by Jason E.C. Wright of @burntsiennaresearchsociety! You are in for a real treat so gather up your art books, design books, coffee table books or rare magazines and come nerd out with Jason!
 
Watch live for a special discount code to get 10% off any book that is discussed in this week's show & tell. If we have it in stock you can get a discount by visiting/writing/calling the shop!
 
 
Here’s how it works: Jason will be live @arcanabooks sharing some of his favorites with you. Raise your hand to share and he will tap you in. Chat about your most influential book or bookshop. Enjoy the hour, meet some interesting people, and support your local bookstore. There’s nothing like a little book fun in the middle of the week.
 
Jason E.C. Wright is the Founder of Burntsienna Research Society, a critical-thinking research consultancy for design histories, intangible culture, and reference materials. Jason is Indiana born and raised, who now considers Los Angeles home. He is an accomplished designer, researcher, writer, with 20+ years as a retail and fashion professional, who takes his love of books seriously, serving as librarian-in-residence at home in Treehouse Hollywood.
 
* You can watch the 5/26 show and tell through our instagram post here.
 
Thanks to Frances Anderton & Angela Anthony / Helms Bakery District.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 26, 2021

Book of the Day > Acne Paper

● Purchase ● Acne Paper book celebrates some of the best work from the magazine’s archive, accompanied by new essays by Sarah Mower, Vince Aletti and Robin Muir written especially for this lavishly produced 568 page edition, edited by Thomas Persson, Acne Paper’s editor-in-chief and creative director.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 25, 2021

Book of the Day > Paul Graham: Beyond Caring

● Purchase ● Originally self-published in 1985, Paul Graham’s renowned series, ‘Beyond Caring’, was made in the waiting rooms and corridors of the Social Security and Unemployment offices around the UK, documenting the long waits, queues and poor conditions of an overburdened system, to produce a powerful series of photographs conveying the hardship people experienced. Denied official permission to make the work, Graham’s photographs were taken discreetly, usually without looking through the camera, resulting in a spatial disorientation that emphasised the unmoored distress of vulnerable citizens. The work shocked many on its release – leading Magnum photographers were outraged by its use of colour in a classic documentary topic, while others celebrated how it straddled the world of activism and art (it was exhibited at both Trade Union conferences and the Museum of Modern Art, New York). Graham forged a fresh form of engaged photography, mixing elements of social documentary, ‘new colour’ and reportage to create a striking body of work that endures to this day. Many decades have passed since their making in 1984, but these images have grown not only in photographic importance, but also as a unique historic record of the mid-1980s unemployment crisis in the UK.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 23, 2021

Book of the Day > Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group

● Purchase ● Abstract painting meets theosophical spirituality in 1930s New Mexico: the first book on a radical, astonishingly prescient episode in American modernism
 
Founded in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, in 1938, at a time when social realism reigned in American art, the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) sought to promote abstract art that pursued enlightenment and spiritual illumination. The nine original members of the Transcendental Painting Group were Emil Bisttram, Robert Gribbroek, Lawren Harris, Raymond Jonson, William Lumpkins, Florence Miller Pierce, Agnes Pelton, Horace Towner Pierce and Stuart Walker. They were later joined by Ed Garman. Despite the quality of their works, these Southwest artists have been neglected in most surveys of American art, their paintings rarely exhibited outside of New Mexico. Faced with the double disadvantage of being an openly spiritual movement from the wrong side of the Mississippi, the TPG has remained a secret mostly known only to cognoscenti.
 
Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group aims to address this slight, claiming the group’s artists as crucial contributors to an alternative through-line in 20th-century abstraction, one with renewed relevance today. This volume provides a broad perspective on the group’s work, positioning it within the history of modern painting and 20th-century American art. Essays examine the TPG in light of their international artistic peers; their involvement with esoteric thought and Theosophy; the group’s sources in the culture and landscape of the American Southwest; and the experience of its two female members.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 22, 2021

Book of the Day > Virginia Wilcox: Arboreal

● Purchase ● Virginia Wilcox’s debut monograph – consisting of photographs made in the large Los Angeles parks that are equally hardscrabble and breathtaking – is quite aptly titled Arboreal. Because they have so many irreconcilable demands placed on them by both civilization and climate, the dominant subjects of the artist’s vision seem more “tree-like” or “relating to trees” than they do the actual thing. We can’t help but admire their stoic resolve. The pictures, Wilcox says, “offer a winding journey through a mangled urban landscape that looks something like wilderness, towing the line between the natural and built environment.”
 
The word “arboreal” of course is also used of animals who live partly or entirely in trees, and we see here how the human animal has used and overused these spaces: alterations to the topography, infrastructural incursions, plain old trash. But Arboreal is no simple environmental diatribe. Rather, it is a clear-headed finding of complicated meaning that is necessarily as ambiguous as its subject. The singular strength of the book lies in the high-wire tension that Wilcox has created between the encroachments on the land and its sheer stubborn beauty – all juxtaposed against the sprawling city below and surrounding. Wrapping everything in that sort of light only known in Southern California, she somehow offers us photographs that are simultaneously as plainly understood as evidence and as thrillingly complex as the mind of the maker.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 19, 2021

Book of the Day > Robert LeBlanc: Moon Dust

● Purchase ● Nothing compares to being up close to a wildfire
 
Moon Dust is a collection of images shot over a length of 4 years by photographer Robert LeBlanc documenting hotshot firefighters in Montana and California.
 
The August Complex wildfire of 2020, which is currently the largest wildfire in California History, burned throughout the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, Mendocino National Forest, and Six Rivers National Forest. The wildfire burned for a total of three months scorching 1,032,648 acres. Rarely do photographers gain intimate access to hotshot crews while on remote wildfires. The images in Moon Dust give an intimate vision of what it's like battling such an unpredictable natural disaster and how these firefighters risk their lives every day. In partnership with Mystery Ranch and Monster Energy Cares, 100% of proceeds of book sales will be donated to the Eric Marsh Foundation, U.S. Hotshot Association, and Backbone Series Scholarship.
more