By JRS
- Gagosian’s flawless curation of Ed Ruscha’s On the Road
Steidl has paired with its darling artist, Ed Ruscha, to once again produce a book that sets a new standard of “over-the-top.” A $10,000 book? What recession? (more…)
Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
Open to Interpretation: Ed Ruscha and Steidl Pay Homage to Kerouac
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Holiday Extended: Robert Frost’s Christmas Cards at the Poets House
Thursday, January 7th, 2010By Michelle Cheung
An ensemble of Robert Frost's Christmas cards at the Poets House
You can still find trails of holiday magic in the Poets House where a small showcase of “Robert Frost’s Annual Christmas Cards: An Exhibition and Celebration” is on display. The poet’s Christmas chapbooks dating from 1929–1962 will be shown until January 16. The exhibit, drawn from the personal collection of Frank Platt, Vice President of the Poets House, and Ward Smith, a Frost collector, generously shares with us an intimate side of the great poet’s life. Platt, grandson of American architect Charles A. Platt, who met Frost while a student at Harvard in the early 1950s when the poet was in his late 70s. Soon after, Platt and his wife became blessed recipients of Frost’s ritual Christmas card giving. In Platt’s introduction to the collection, he said, “Even though Frost may have been the greatest living poet of his time, to me, the cards were tokens of affection and part of season’s twinkle.” Frost’s chapbooks were sent off as holiday greetings by a variety of people in his circle including Frost himself, his publisher, collectors, and friends. Initially printed in 1929 by master printer Joseph Blumenthal of The Spiral Press (who didn’t even send a copy to Frost), subsequent chapbooks were published collaboratively by Frost and Blumenthal almost yearly starting in 1934.
Piecebook Reloaded: Twenty Years of Rare Graffiti Drawings
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009By JRS
“Once upon a time, long before technology created an online global community, graffiti was a highly localized art form. Be it on the subway or in the street, graffiti was available only to those who crossed its path. Though photographs were shot and circulated amongst those in the know and sometimes even made it out into the world through early books and magazines, the truly exclusive were given to circulating the piecebook, an iconic black sketchbook with heavy stock paper, perfect for showcasing the most personal forms of marker-based artwork.”
Such is our introduction to Piecebook Reloaded, a new book on graffiti that’s just hit shelves. Like its predecessor, Sacha Jenkins and David Villorente’s Piecebook Reloaded recreates the look and feel of those elusive sketchbooks. Featuring the work of more than 50 graffiti legends, Piecebook Reloaded delivers the best of the best in its most confidential expression. (more…)
Backstage Dior: Ten Years Behind the Scenes with Roxanne Lowit
Friday, October 23rd, 2009By JRS
Roxanne Lowit's Backstage Dior, available from teNeues November 1, 2009
When I visited Roxanne Lowit’s Kips Bay studio this week, I was among the very few to have a sneak preview of her forthcoming magnum opus, Backstage Dior. That isn’t a phrase that I typically throw around, especially when it comes to monograph art books. That being said, this book is not only an awe-inspiring look at John Galliano’s adroit couture and Lowit’s progressive photography, but also a very precise blueprint for publishers as to how future art/fashion/photography books should be crafted.
Backstage Dior, 2009 Photo by Roxanne Lowit
The thick pages turn and the images jump off the page; the dynamic hues staging a full-on attack of the senses. In-your-face provocative imagery sets the tone for this look back into the last ten years of Galliano’s reign at Dior as creative director. Since the beginning, Roxanne Lowit has been there to document his ascension into the annals of the most prolific designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The 248-page book offers readers an intimate look behind the curtains of his exclusive shows where few have been before. Models, makeup artists, stylists, and Galliano himself are among the lucky few to have seen what this books brings to life: a dreamlike world of wearable art being displayed on vivacious human canvases. Her collection of candid and personable photographs convey the electricity of fashion’s most astonishing spectacle.
Backstage Dior, 2009 Photo by Roxanne Lowit
Few books come to mind that can offer even a glimpse of the light this project sheds on the worlds of fashion and photography. The brilliant use of empty, black pages is a technique that mirrors the photographer’s and designer’s personalities as artists and also gives the reader a moment of calm from the flashing of bright colors that fills nearly every page. Not since Tom Ford’s 2008 Rizzoli monograph has a major publishing house attempted this, sans Abrams’ unsuccessful attempt with 2009’s Avedon Fashion, which employs white endpages. Leave it to Galliano and Lowit to do it right. The mix of black and white and color photography is something that Roxanne has been doing for the length of her career, and was something Warhol himself once told her he admired about her work.
Backstage Dior, 2009 Photo by Roxanne Lowit
With forewords by John Galliano and Suzy Menkes, as well as texts by Simon Doonan, Valerie Steele, and Jean-Jacques Naudet.
Mil Besos: Andalusian Dance Worth a Thousand Kisses
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009By JRS
One of the images in Ruven Afanador's new book, "Mil Besos"
In his newest book that acts as a very fitting homage to the women of flamenco, Colombian-born photographer Ruven Afanador continues to do what he has done his entire career: capturing the raw and impassioned beauty of his polished and couture-laden subjects. It’s being called his most powerful work yet and his models, eyes rimmed in inky kohl and preening for the camera in Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, and Galliano, radiate under the intense Andalusian sun.
With an introduction by the elusive John Galliano himself and pieces by Iman and Diane Von Furstenberg, this is a staple for any coffee table already festooned with Avedon, Bassman, or Newton.
