JOIN US SATURDAY, JUNE 15th, 4:00 to 6:00 PM WITH

SHARON JOHNSTON AND MARK LEE

TO CELEBRATE THE RELEASE OF

EL CROQUIS 198: JOHNSTON MARKLEE 2005 2019 FOLDING TIME

Please welcome Arcana's very own architects for this special event held in the fabulous space they created for us in 2012! If you cannot attend but wish to purchase a copy of "EL CROQUIS 198: JOHNSTON MARKLEE 2005 2019" signed by Mark and Sharon, place your online order here, or call us at 310-458-1499. 

Founded by partners Sharon Johnston, F.A.I.A. and Mark Lee in 1998, Johnston Marklee is recognized for its diverse portfolio of architecture, engaging the physical and cultural circumstances of each project through a precise synthesis of structural form, materiality, and atmospheric light. The work of the firm pays tribute to a specific Southern Californian interpretation of modernism, and at the same time operates at the intersection of a global and local dialogue. 

Johnston and Lee have forged a leading role in the cultural discourse around contemporary art and architecture, eliciting design collaborations with distinguished museums, foundations, and artists around the world. Complementing this far-reaching network, the firm’s work is recognized for being deeply rooted in the history and foundations of the discipline. Their work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Menil Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Architecture Museum of TU Munich. Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston served as Artistic Directors for the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial. In 2018 they were named Professors in Practice at Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Mark Lee was appointed Chair of the Architecture Department. They have also taught at major universities including Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the Technical University of Berlin, ETH Zurich, and have held the Cullinan Chair at Rice University and the Frank Gehry Chair at the University of Toronto.

Book of the Day > Roger Herman: Ceramics 1997-2018. Signed edition of 250. A gorgeous collection of artist Roger Herman's ceramics!

Mark de Paola was literally born into a photo studio on Cahuenga Blvd in Los Angeles, and grew up splitting time between Los Angeles and New York. His earliest recollections are of watching photo shoots and being completely immersed in the fashion books and periodicals of the time - Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Mark's photographic foundation is the works of his father Alessio, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Bert Stern, and Art Kane. Now based in New York, Mr. de Paola is a fine art photographer who has had multiple covers for the likes of Vogue Spain and Vogue Mexico, as well as campaigns and commercials for Donna Karan, Laura Biagiotti, Neutrogena, Gucci, Brioni, Sephora, Sony, Leica Camera, Giorgio RED perfume, and MAC Cosmetics to name a few. He has directed nearly seven hundred television commercials in the fashion and beauty sector and has extensive campaign and retail experience. "Created over several years, “Recent Work” includes portrait, nude, landscape, and inanimate object; illuminating de Paola’s memories, feelings and impressions of people, places and objects he has known. Carefully sequenced by the photographer himself, the series invites viewers to leave behind the everyday and journey with him... Provoking us to project meanings into its viscerally striking, blurred and saturated forms. De Paola’s desire to wield the lens as an extension of his own body is clear in the subtle way he escorts us through his cinematic world. “Recent Work” is endlessly fascinating and promises to reward those who visit and revisit it again and again.”

Please join us this Saturday, June 8th, between 4:00 and 6:00 PM at Arcana to meet and greet Mark de Paola as he unveils his limited edition publication. If you cannot attend but would like to purchase a signed copy of "Recent Work", please place your order here, or call us at 310-458-1499.

Book of the day > Mona Kuhn: She Disappeared Into Complete Silence. Published by Steidl. “Acclaimed for her intimate nudes, Mona Kuhn takes a new direction into abstraction in her latest publication, “She Disappeared Into Complete Silence”. Photographed at a golden modernist structure on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, architectural lines, light reflections and a single figure have been carefully balanced against the backdrop of the California desert. The human figure in these images - Kuhn’s friend and collaborator Jacintha - emerges like a surrealist mirage, fragmented and indistinct, at times submerged in shadows or overexposed. The building’s facades of glass and mirrors serve as optical planes, an extension of the artist’s camera and lens. Light is split into refracting colors, desert vegetation grows sideways, inside is outside and outside in. Kuhn pushes a certain disorienting effect by introducing metallic foils as an additional surface, at times producing purely abstract results. The work marks Kuhn’s increasing use of techniques that appear to merge the figure, abstraction and landscape into one."