Showing posts with label Art Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art Books. Show all posts
You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen
Rick Rubin at home with his parents, 1986
Debbie Harry at home, 1977
This Friday from 6-8 at the KS Art Gallery (73 Leonard St) there will be a book launch and exhibition for photographer James Hamilton, one of the sweetest men I know. Come meet me there! I designed the book!
Here is Thurston's short, rapturous essay about James and a small slide show of his work on Vanity Fair's website. You can RSVP at rsvp@ecstaticpeacelibrary.com
Atlas of Remote Islands
The Atlas of Remote Places is one of the most beautiful books I've seen in a long time. If I had the money I'd buy everyone I know a copy. Judith Schalansky both wrote and designed this small tome after weeks of what I assume was a rabbit-hole's worth of research in Berlin's state library. The fine design and printing of the book would have been enough to make me want it but it's her essays, magical, probably true* vignettes or histories of each island that make the book a marvel. It is no wonder it won the 2009 prize for Most Beautiful Book in Germany.
* The author:
That’s why the question whether these stories are "true" is misleading. Every detail stems from factual sources…however I was the discoverer of the sources, researching them through ancient and rare books, and I have transformed the texts and appropriated them as sailors appropriate the lands they discover.The librarian in me took a deep pleasure in sliding this book next to my copy of the Dictionary of Imaginary Places, a book I've been bringing with me everywhere since I got it in fourth grade. Without getting preachy, I really look forward to a future where the only books that continue to be printed are works of beauty for intimate perusal like this one.
And just because I love it so I'm tacking on Lewis Carroll's map of the ocean from The Hunting of the Snark:
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
“They are merely conventional signs!
“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best—
A perfect and absolute blank!”
Helen Levitt at the Met
New York [Button to Secret Passage], 1938I was just in the Met's Drawing, Prints & Photographs hall (my favorite part of the museum) and discovered the street photography of Helen Levitt for the first time. I'm probably the last person to find out about her and of course I only do so two months after she died. Now I'm off to try and find a used copy of her famous book A Way of Seeing for considerably less than the $2500 dollars it's valued at...
Errata Editions
Just saw these new books at the Strand the other day, a (hopefully) ongoing series of reproductions of famous (and prohibitively expensive) photography books. I'm so happy to be seeing such a well designed package making good art more accessible to people:
From Eugene Atget's Photographe de Paris
From Walker Evans' American Photographs
Slinkachu
I'm so excited because I finally got the book of London artist Slinkachu's work! He places tiny people all over London in various states of loneliness, despair, or insignificance. Luckily you can see most if not all of the images on his blog but you'll want to have the book handy after EMPs wipe out all your electronics.
I'll be putting my copy on my bookshelf between Banksy's Wall and Piece and White's Mistress Masham's Repose...
I'll be putting my copy on my bookshelf between Banksy's Wall and Piece and White's Mistress Masham's Repose...
My New Favorite Things of the Past 2 Weeks
Joe Cocker - Space Captain
Grant Phabao & Djouls - Are Molesting Laura Vol.9 mixtape of all brass band covers (especially the Hot 8 Brass Band's version of Sexual Healing)Scientists discover the fossil remains of what could be the largest snake to ever exist. A relative of today’s boa constrictor, it was at least 12.8 meters long and weighed more than a ton. Another scientist has found what he believes to be the world's smallest snake.
Crazy pictures of the sun and the Smithsonian's top NASA photos of all time.
The awesomely unauthorized video of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.
My new pop-up book that I discovered through BoingBoing (and is only $14 on Amazon!):
The Wunderkammer exhibit that is up at MoMA right now (and is closing on November 10th).
John Hodgman describing his encounters with aliens:
The Chris Ware cartoon that the New Yorker wouldn't publish because it broke with their formatting:
And this, my new favorite song that I can't believe I've never heard before:
Ray Charles - Let's Go Get Stoned
[right-click to download]
Max Pam - Indian Ocean Journals
Photograph by Peter Beard
There are so many beautiful art books out there that you and I will never be able to afford and even if one could afford them, how often would you really look at them? On top of that, the art world makes sure that images of artwork don't make it onto the web (or at least not anywhere I can find). The fact that you can't look at the complete works of an artist over 100 years old in this day and age is ludicrous. Maybe I'll start posting images I've found that I love but would never remember to look at again. While looking for images of Peter Beard's artwork I stumbled upon someone's blog who photographs spreads of their favorite art books so that more than just the dozen people who can afford them can see them. Here's a series of spreads from Max Pam's work Indian Ocean Journals:
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