Book of the Day Posted Apr 14, 2020

Book of the Day > THE COCKETTES

PURCHASE ● THE COCKETTES: Acid Drag & Sexual Anarchy, 1969-1972. Published by Process Media. “They were like hippie acid freak drag queens, which is always a good thing!!” — John Waters The Cockettes were an acid-fueled, experimental, hippie collective performance troupe who, through their theatricality, costume, and communal living, created the singular “High Drag” performance genre known as Gender Fuck. The influence of the Cockettes on American underground culture is present in every glittery sequin and candy-colored coiffure gracing our daily lives. Birthed in an LSD bathed commune in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the fall of 1969, The Cockettes were a fever dream of sexual freedom and expression. They granted themselves names and identities that reflected their inner nature then put it all on the stage with elaborate costumes in anarchic musical productions. Gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual—The Cockettes were EVERYTHING. The photos here are shared from museums, magazines, private collections, and the archives of founding and long-time Cockette, Fayette Hauser. Notable photographers whose work is represented in these pages: Mary Ellen Mark, Peter Hujar, Clay Geerdes, Bud Lee, Robert Altman, David Wise, Michael Zagaris, Roger Anderson, Gilles Larrain, Scott Runyon, Blair Paltridge, Jack Mitchell, and Wendy Mukluk. Includes interviews with John Waters and Peter Coyote.

Events Posted Apr 14, 2020

Virtual Book Signing with Shantell Martin!

Please join artist @Shantell_Martin on Thursday, 4/16, 4:00-5:30 EST for a live virtual book signing! Order your copy here.
 
Ms. Martin will be live, signing her new book LINES, taking questions from YOU! and discussing her work with guests Sylvia Ugga (@heni), Théodore Coulombe (@theo_coulombe @Standard_Space) and photographer @conniemtsang. Order a SIGNED book on our website!  The event can be accessed here.
 
SHANTELL MARTIN: LINES
Text by Katharine Stout. Interview by @hansulrichobrist Published by @heni. "Martin has adorned walls, sneakers and textiles with her art, collaborating with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, the NYC Ballet, Nike and Tiffany The art of Shantell Martin has, for more than a decade, captivated audiences around the world with its intuitive energy, skill and bravura. Using a highly personalized language of characters, faces, creatures and messages and often rendering her large-scale black and white drawings live in front of an audience, Martin invites viewers to actively engage in her creative process. Using drawing as a physical stream-of-consciousness, her work is characterized by a unique freedom, expressed through the possibilities of her chosen canvas—whether that be a piece of paper or a textile, a sculptural surface, a wall or a screen.
 
Bridging the fine art and commercial worlds since her beginnings making live performance drawings in the mega clubs of Tokyo, Martin navigates different creative worlds to interrogate and play with the roles of artist and viewer in a uniquely charming, accessible style.
 
This monograph charts, for the first time, the career of this prolific and popular artist, including early pieces such as “Dear Grandmother” (a 2003 collaboration between the artist and her grandmother on over 70 pieces of embroidery), large-scale murals and commissions and collaborations with museums, technical institutes, musicians and fashion brands.
 
London-born, New York–based artist Shantell Martin (born 1980) is best known for her signature black-and-white drawings. She has had solo shows at 92Y Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, New York. Martin has collaborated with brands such as Nike, Max Mara and Tiffany & Co., as well as with the New York City Ballet and Kendrick Lamar."
 
Order your signed copy here and join the event here!

 

Book of the Day Posted Apr 13, 2020

Book of the Day > Miranda July

Purchase ● The work of Miranda July—the most impressively cross-disciplinary artist of her generation—is brought into focus in this mid-career retrospective. From her early rarely seen Riot Grrrl-influenced fanzines and performances to a career that has produced seminal films, fiction, sculptures, public art, and even a smartphone app, Miranda July has proven adept at articulating the poignancy and humor of the human plight while also achieving enormous acclaim along the way. This chronological retrospective includes July’s performance and video projects, award-winning films, digital multimedia, and written pieces which make clear the multidimensionality of her work. The book includes photography, stills, and archival ephemera and is narrated by friends, collaborators, curators, assistants, and audience members including David Byrne, Spike Jonze, Lena Dunham, Carrie Brownstein, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, as well as July herself. This behind-the-scenes commentary reveals an intimate perspective on the process, struggles, and grit involved in forging one’s own path. What emerges is just how singular her voice is—from a movie narrated by an injured cat to a performance that builds an intentional community; from sculpture that engages the public to an interfaith charity shop in a London department store. July may be impossible to categorize, but the importance of her work and her status as an essential cultural icon with wide-ranging appeal is irrefutable.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 12, 2020

Book of the day > David Hockney: Drawing From Life

● PURCHASE ● “Celebrating more than 60 years of intimate portraiture by David Hockney

Published to accompany a major international exhibition, David Hockney: Drawing from Life features Hockney’s drawings from the 1950s to the present day, and focuses on his depictions of himself and a small group of sitters close to him: his muse, Celia Birtwell; his mother, Laura Hockney; and his friends, the curator, Gregory Evans, and master printer, Maurice Payne. In his portrait drawings of these figures, Hockney tries out new stylistic experiments and expresses his admiration for his artistic predecessors, from Holbein to Picasso.

 

Featuring 150 beautifully reproduced works from public and private collections across the world, this publication traces the trajectory of Hockney’s drawing practice by examining how he has revisited these five figures throughout his career. Highlights include a series of new portraits, colored pencil drawings created in Paris in the early 1970s, composite Polaroid portraits from the 1980s and a selection of drawings from an intense period of self-scrutiny during the 1980s when the artist created a self-portrait every day for two months.”

 

 

Book of the Day Posted Apr 09, 2020

Book of the Day > Fucked Up + Photocopied: 20th Anniversary Edition

● PURCHASE ● This edition celebrates the 20th anniversary of this iconic collection and features a new introduction & a vibrant red cover. Raw, brazen and totally intense, Fucked Up + Photocopied is a collection of frenetic flyers produced for the American punk scene between 1977 and 1985. Many were created by the musicians themselves and demonstrate the emphasis within the punk scene on individuality and the manic urge of its members to create things new. Images were compiled out of whatever material could be found, often photocopied and, still warm, stapled to the nearest telephone pole to warn the world about next week’s gig. One glance and you can sense the fury of live performances by bands such as Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and The Minutemen, and, through the subtext the reader is exposed to the psyche of a generation of musicians stripped bare: The Germs, J.F.A, NOFX, X, The Circle Jerks, Devo, The Exploited, The Screamers, The Cramps, The Dils, The Avengers and more.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 08, 2020

Book of the Day > Read Me, Los Angeles

Purchase ● Read Me, Los Angeles is a colorful, lively, and informed celebration of all things bookish in L.A. past and present, including interviews with current L.A. writers; day trips in search of favorite fictional characters, from Marlowe to Weetzie Bat; author quotes galore; curated lists of the must-read L.A. books, from fiction to history to poetry; a look at where writers have lived and worked in the City of Angels; and insight into the city’s literary festivals, bookstores, publishers, literacy nonprofits, libraries, and more. Rich with photographs, book images, and vintage maps, Read Me, Los Angeles is a gift to L.A. from a creative team that includes author Katie Orphan, editor Colleen Dunn Bates, associate editors Katelyn Keating and Julianne Johnson, designer Amy Inouye, photographer Shahin Ansari, and artist Kate Wong.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 07, 2020

Book of the Day > POOLS

PURCHASE ● Lounging, Diving, Floating, Dreaming: Picturing Life at the Swimming Pool. A celebratory ode to the joy and enduring allure of the swimming pool, and a gorgeous photography book to accompany poolside daydreaming. Glamorous, seductive, and fun, made for lounging, frolicking, splashing, dipping, diving, floating, and escaping, swimming pools are symbols of both sport and leisure and conjure images of well-oiled bodies, colorful bikinis, and glimmering blue waters on hot summer days. Muse to writers, artists, photographers, and filmmakers, the swimming pool's careless opulence is splashed across the pages of this book in gorgeous images by contemporary photographers. In her second book for Rizzoli, curator, writer, and avid swimmer Lou Stoppard offers the promise of sunshine and the seduction of youth in her edit of some of the best contemporary swimming-pool photography. Organized by theme, from the glamour of the poolside party to the simple, meditative pleasure of being in the water, the selected photographs are as inspiring as they are moving. Photographers whose images are featured in this book include Sølve Sundsbø, Glen Luchford, Stephen Shore, Mert & Marcus, Diana Markosian, Martin Parr, Martine Franck, Alex Webb, Alice Hawkins, and Nick Knight. This is the perfect gift purchase for photography fans, swimmers, and lovers of leisure.

Book of the Day Posted Apr 06, 2020

Book of the Day > Debauched: Witchery and Devilry Vol. 1 (1st Spell)

Purchase ● During the height of the turned-on 1960s and '70s Occult explosion, even the under-the-counter men's magazines got in on the act and began a surreal exploration of the haunting netherworld of Witchcraft and Satanism. This monumental art book reveals a world of diabolical smut that was so compelling and obscure that many people today would question whether or not the magazines were real or just an elaborate and detailed modern photo editing invention. A few salacious titles and images on the internet sparked imaginations, and strongly inspired bands in the doom/black/heavy metal genre, eventually these alluring images found their way to record covers and T-shirts, but mostly remaining shadowy, mysterious, and elusive. Magazines so impossible to hunt down that their very existence seemed an urban myth. Well, they are real and they are spectacular! These magazines are in fact, out there in the world. They are collecting dust in attics, basements, and garages. Hidden away from sight. Unsavory treasures deemed too filthy and then forgotten by their lustful owners. This massive 384 pages deluxe hardcover book is a glimpse into a vast and shocking world that remains virtually unknown and unexplored. These artifacts come from a bygone era promoting sexual revolution and freedom with overt and unholy occult themes. If you have any issues with hardcore witchcraft and Satanism, body hair or nudity, don't pick this book up and quickly get it out of your sight, and forget everything we've mentioned. Just remember life's too short to take everything so seriously. Flesh is beautiful. It's time to descend into the infernal witches' cauldron and deep down into the hellish pit for a real Black Mass. Includes a thorough review and collector's guide of each rare publication as well as illuminating essays on the subject.
Book of the Day Posted Apr 03, 2020

Book of the Day > Dimes Times: Emotional Eating

PURCHASE ● The duo behind New York restaurant Dimes presents a sensitive, gastronomical roadmap for the heart and the belly with their debut cookbook, Dimes Times: Emotional Eating.

Dimes, the all-day Chinatown restaurant known for serving vibrant, healthy plates to a devout following of patrons has grown to include a deli and market as well as design objects and apothecary products since its opening in 2013. Now, the all-encompassing brand expands with its debut cookbook: Dimes Times: Emotional Eating.

The collection of recipes, derived from the Dimes menu, is organized by time of day and state of mind, from 8AM, Determined and 4PM, Curious through 11PM, Afterhours. The 8x8 book is inspired by Bruno Munari, medicine folklore and conversations overheard in the neighborhood and features interactive food faces and shapely rhymes that encourage readers to get creative with their meals.

Dimes Times: Emotional Eating features photography by Mary Manning alongside text by Alissa Wagner and Toniann Fernandez, and was designed by Erin Knutson and Sabrina De Sousa. Sandwiched between two clocks that recall the Dimes logo, Dimes Times: Emotional Eating is a compendium of tasty go-to’s for the mind and body at any hour.

Book of the Day Posted Apr 02, 2020

Book of the Day > Yoshitomo Nara

PURCHASE ● The definitive book on the life and career of internationally acclaimed artist Yoshitomo Nara Yoshitomo Nara rose to prominence in the mid-1990s, a star in a generation of avant-garde Japanese artists associated with the neo-Pop ‘Superflat' movement. This book, made in close collaboration with Nara himself, explores more than three decades of his work - and is the first truly authoritative monograph on the artist in more than a decade. Written by art historian Yeewan Koon and featuring texts by Nara himself, it includes his most recent work in painting, drawing, sculpture, and ceramics.

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