Book of the Day Posted Jun 23, 2020

Book of the Day > Death Magick Abundance

Purchase ● More than any party, parade, team, or disaster, New Orleans is the people. The ones who persevere, survive, strengthen, and transform the city in all its unceasing vibrancy. For nearly a decade, photographer Akasha Rabut has documented this thriving culture. In Death Magick Abundance, her first book, she reveals the city’s spirit through the pink smoke of the Caramel Curves, the first all-female black motorcycle club; alongside the Southern Riderz, urban cowboys on horseback in the streets; and many others who represent the next generation of New Orleans. Seeking to interpret and preserve a sacred cultural heritage while redefining itself against a constantly shifting landscape, Death Magick Abundance is a conduit for the love and unending beauty of New Orleans and its people to flow to the rest of the world.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 20, 2020

Book of the Day > Teju Cole: Fernweh

Purchase ● The picturesque vistas and apparent stability of Switzerland have made it an elusive subject for contemporary photography. Over a five-year period (2014 – 2019), Cole found a distinctly new way to look at a country that has been the quintessence of tourist experience for almost two centuries. Fernweh muses on the German word for a longing to be elsewhere. Cole’s meditative and scrupulously composed work, made with colour film, is evocative of the hidden history of the Alpine nation as well as of its highly curated terrain. Returning to Switzerland year after year, Cole shares the patience and mild palette of luminaries of contemporary European photography — but the constructivist tension in these images is all his own. With photographs shot in every corner of the country — from Vaud to Graubünden to Lugano — Fernweh creates a vision of Switzerland that, though largely devoid of human presence, is rich in human traces; none more so than Cole’s own distinct way of seeing.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 19, 2020

Happy Juneteenth!

Here are some celebratory books to get your party started. Book(s) of the day > Meals, Music, and Muses: Recipes from My African American Kitchen by Alexander Smalls published by Flatiron Books (@asmalls77, @ flatiron_books); Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African-American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin (@tonitiptonmartin, @clarksonpotter), Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original (UNC Press), Princess Pamela's Soul Food Cookbook: A Mouth-Watering Treasury of Afro-American Recipes (@rizzolibooks), The Unqualified Hostess: I do it my way so you can too! (@whoopigoldberg, @rizzolibooks), Trap Kitchen (@therealtrapkitchen).

 

Book of the Day Posted Jun 18, 2020

Book of the Day > Solange Pessoa

Purchase ● The first English-language monograph on seminal Brazilian artist Solange Pessoa (born 1961), this substantial volume is also the artist’s most comprehensive to date. Pessoa’s sculptural work, which often mobilizes materials like human hair, leather, wax and animal blood, evokes issues related to human and animal bodies, vacillates between beauty and abjection and forges formal connections between indigenous Brazilian traditions and international postminimal art.
 
Surveying work from throughout Pessoa’s career, from her beginnings in the late 1980s through to the present, with selections from the artist’s sketchbooks and archives, this volume argues for Pessoa’s unique contribution to Brazilian art. Including texts by international scholars Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Eduardo Jorge de Oliveira and Alex Bacon, as well as an interview with Pessoa by Liz Munsell, Solange Pessoa introduces English-language readers to the artist’s compelling body of work from the past three decades.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 16, 2020

Book of the Day > > The Candy Book of Transversal Creativity

● Purchase Link in Bio ● A celebration of the transversal community from the iconic magazine. The Candy Book of Transversal Creativity showcases the best content from the groundbreaking style magazine's twelve issues, with photography by icons such as Nan Goldin, Ryan McGinley, Jack Pierson, and Ellen von Unwerth; such muses as Hari Nef, Divine, and Laverne Cox; and thoughtful and insightful writing by influential cultural trans figures such as Amos Mac and Geena Rocero.

Founded a decade ago by Luis Venegas, C*NDY is the first and only style magazine to focus on the transversal community, or transgender and gender-nonconforming/nonbinary people, transvestism, cross-dressing, drag, and androgyny. C*NDY has a devoted fan base and respect from industry leaders for showcasing the most creative and important names and talent in transversal fashion, art, and culture. This book brings together for readers the most timeless, inspirational, and aspirational pages of fashion, art, culture, makeup, glamour, icons, amazing transformations, and fun.

This is an inspiring celebration of the many levels of transversal creativity and people, all facing an exciting future.
Book of the Day Posted Jun 14, 2020

Book of the day, In Memoriam > John Hiltunen

In memoriam: John Hiltunen. It was love at first sight when we first encountered Mr. Hiltunen's work through @creativegrowth at the #LAABF2016.

John Hiltunen is a facsimile of John Hiltunen's original artist's book published by Books for All Press ( @bfa_press ),  a non-profit publisher working solely with artists with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities to publish artists' books. "John Hiltunen began making collages in 2006. Before this time, John focused on rug making, wood work, and ceramics. After participating in Paul Butler’s “Collage Party” in 2007, John’s collage work became a consistent artistic pursuit.  His clever juxtapositions, which typically combine animal and human subjects mostly derived from fashion and natural history magazines, are provocative in their humor and yet surprisingly earnest in intention. Straightforward in their absurdity, John’s collages are naturally uncanny with cats, dogs, reptiles, and other wild animals looking posh in the latest fashions. In 2012, John’s work was the focus of a major group exhibition curated by Matthew Higgs at Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco. He has also exhibited at White Columns, New York, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, the San Francisco International Airport, #goodluckgallery and had his work represented at contemporary art fairs like NADA Miami, the Independent, and Frieze New York. In 2013, he was honored as a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award, given to those artists whose work show promise, talent, and individual artistic strength but who have not yet received widespread recognition. John’s work is also in the private collection of Cindy Sherman." #johnhiltunen @creativegrowth

 

Book of the Day Posted Jun 13, 2020

Book of the Day > Paul Mpagi Sepuya

Today (6/13/20) was *supposed* to have been our book signing with Paul Mpagi Sepuya, but, well, you know the story…
So we’re going to celebrate the book again (it was book-of-the-day on 4/28) here today. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya presents the work of one of the most prominent up-and-coming photographers working today. Sepuya makes photographs of friends, artists, collaborators, and himself. He challenges and deconstructs traditional portraiture by way of collage, layering, fragmentation, mirror imagery, and the perspective of a Black, queer gaze. Although the creation of artist books has been a long-standing part of his practice, Paul Mpagi Sepuya is the first publication of his work to be released widely, co-published with the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis on the occasion of a major solo exhibition. Interview with the artist by Wassan Al-Khudhairi. Contributions by Malik Gaines, Lucy Gallun, Ariel Goldberg, Evan Moffitt, and Grace Wales Bonner."
Book of the Day Posted Jun 12, 2020

Book of the day > Punk Shirts: A Personal Collection by Bryan Ray Turcotte -- SIGNED!

● Purchase ● Hundreds of examples from the author’s personal collection of well-worn vintage punk shirts line the pages of bestselling author Bryan Ray Turcotte’s latest book. Amazing one-of-a-kind pieces including internationally famous t-shirts such as Sid Vicious’ personal Sex Pistols shirt, Joe Strummer’s, ‘Rude Boy’, hand painted red brigade Tee and Darby Crash’s personal Vivian Westwood ‘Boobs’ seditionaries T-Shirt. Turcotte’s collection also features gems such as a hand drawn Ric Clayton (RxCx) Suicidal Tendencies button-up featured on the back of the band’s first LP, dozens of Malcolm McLaren / Vivienne Westwood creations and loads of very rare band tees including Misfits, The Cramps, The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Screamers, Germs, Mentors and more.

 

Book of the Day Posted Jun 11, 2020

Book of the day > The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir by André Leon Talley

“During André Leon Talley’s first magazine job, alongside Andy Warhol at Interview, a fateful meeting with Karl Lagerfeld began a decades-long friendship with the enigmatic, often caustic designer. Propelled into the upper echelons by his knowledge and adoration of fashion, André moved to Paris as bureau chief of John Fairchild’s Women’s Wear Daily, befriending fashion's most important designers (Halston, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta). But as André made friends, he also made enemies. A racially tinged encounter with a member of the house of Yves Saint Laurent sent him back to New York and into the offices of Vogue under Grace Mirabella. There, he eventually became creative director, developing an unlikely but intimate friendship with Anna Wintour. As she rose to the top of Vogue’s masthead, André also ascended, and soon became the most influential man in fashion. The Chiffon Trenches offers a candid look at the who’s who of the last fifty years of fashion. At once ruthless and empathetic, this engaging memoir tells with raw honesty the story of how André not only survived the brutal style landscape but thrived—despite racism, illicit rumors, and all the other challenges of this notoriously cutthroat industry—to become one of the most renowned voices and faces in fashion. Woven throughout the book are also André’s own personal struggles that have impacted him over the decades, along with intimate stories of those he has turned to for inspiration (Diana Vreeland, Diane von Fürstenberg, Lee Radziwill, to name a few), and of course his Southern roots and ongoing faith, which have guided him since childhood. The result is a highly compelling read that captures the essence of a world few of us will ever have real access to, but one that we all want to know oh so much more about." @andreltalley #ballantinebooks
Book of the Day Posted Jun 10, 2020

Object of the day > Eldridge Cleaver for President Bumper Sticker

Eldridge Cleaver for President – An Unused 1968 Peace and Freedom Party Presidential Campaign Bumper Sticker. In 1968, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover vilified the Black Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.” So, imagine the divide for the country when Eldridge Cleaver, author of “Soul on Ice", Senior Editor of "Ramparts" Magazine, and Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party qualified for the ballot in some twenty states that same year as the Presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party. The New York Times wrote that November, "Running on a platform of immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and support of the Black liberation movement, Eldridge Cleaver can present the only electoral challenge to the discreditable politics of Nixon, Humphrey, and Wallace." Printed on a day-glo orange, adhesive-backed heavy paper stock at Berkeley Graphic Arts, this was the California Peace and Freedom Party's "Cleaver For President" 1968 election bumper sticker featuring their Dove with a broken chain graphic along with the iconic Black Panther Party logo. Sadly, as we all know, Richard Nixon was the victorious candidate in that fateful election... A bright, unused vintage example of this bit of countercultural political history with its backing still attached showing just a bit of unobtrusive, light soiling (photo shows reflection of protective shrinkwrap around the sticker).

 

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