Olmes Carretti, Best Company
Softcover, 120 pp., offset 1/1, 195 x 250 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-3-940215-00-0
Published by Passenger Books
$29.00 ·
Designer Olmes Carretti
Perfect Definition of a Fox
As vintage couture clothing becomes more and more collectible, the next step is no surprise: collectible sweatshirts. Specifically, the incredibly beautiful, heavy-duty “high-school sweats” from Best Company in the 1980s, designed by Italian designer Olmes Carretti. Decorated with motifs derived from nature and sports, based on precise natural studies and drawings, these high-quality sweatshirts are deeply appreciated for their design artistry. Graphic design wizards Vier5 visited Carretti at his home in Reggio Emilia and created this absorbing book, including dazzling photos documenting individual shirts, explanatory texts and interviews with the designer. Best Company closed almost 20 years ago, and it has since achieved cult status: this book shows why.
Best Company, Fashion, Interview, Olmes Carretti, Passenger Books, RAM, Vier5
Florian Göttke, Toppled
Softcover, 150 pp., offset 4/4, 155 x 240 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN: 978-94-6083-016-7
Published by Post Editions
$39.00 ·
Life as an absolute dictator may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Artist Florian Gottke collected a huge number of images of the toppled statues of Saddam Hussein on the Internet, and then started looked at them carefully. A close reading of these images reveals an astonishing amount of information about what happened in Iraq, about the statues’ desecration and humiliation, their transformation from manifestations of Saddam’s totalitarian power into icons for the defeat of his regime, their expulsion from the public sphere, their appropriation into his enemies’ museums and their symbolic reinterpretation for use in anti-war protests. Even in our modern image culture, the ancient magical link between the person (Saddam) and his representation (statue) is still alive in the human psyche.
Alena Alexandrova, Art, Florian Göttke, Iran, Iraq, Mariska van den Berg, Photography, Post Editions, RAM, Rebecca Sakoun, Saddam Hussein, Sculpture
John Latham, Canvas Events
Softcover, 24 pp., offset 4/1, 215 x 275 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-905464-31-9
Published by Ridinghouse
$22.00 ·
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
John Latham, Canvas Events
at Karsten Schubert / Richard Saltoun
5 May — 11 June 2010
This small but impeccably produced catalog introduces a never-before-exhibited series of works by the late British artist John Latham (1921-2006). The 1994 works called, Canvas Events, features spray-painted and twisted canvas on wooden stretchers. The works challenge the conventional relationship between canvas and stretcher, turning the traditional site of the painting into a sculptural field. Latham often worked with spray paint; he often described the dotted sprinkled result as miniature universes. Reproductions of the 1994 Canvas Events are accompanied by a conversation between Latham, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Barbara Steveni, in which they discuss the artist’s work over time.
Art, Barbara Steveni, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Interview, John Latham, Karsten Schubert, RAM, Richard Saltoun, Ridinghouse, Tim Harvey
Bless, Retrospective Home Nº30 — Nº41
Softcover, 416 pp., offset 4/4, 185 x 250 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-934105-12-2
Published by Sternberg Press
$45.00 ·
Heralded as one of fashion’s most innovative designers, the Paris and Berlin-based duo BLESS (Désirée Heiss and Ines Kaag) refuse to capitalize on any one milieu, and instead explore the differences between and the mixing of the systems of art, fashion, and design. This book brings together visual and written documentation of BLESS’s last twelve collections (N° 30-N° 41), continually prompting and challenging the question of where a product begins and ends. Their latest project, N° 41 Retroperspective Home, culminates in an exhibition / intervention of the same title at the Kunsthaus.” The hybrid nature of [BLESS’s] output cries out to be tackled by an institution like ours,” state the curators of the exhibition,” but at the same time makes it very difficult to do so … This is precisely where the challenge of our exhibition lies, seeing art as design and fashion as architecture.”
Art, Bless, Desiree Heiss, Fashion, Ines Kaag, Manuel Raeder, RAM, Sternberg Press
Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice — The Reader
Softcover, 445 pp., offset 4/1, 125 x 210 mm
English and Swedish
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-933128-63-4
Published by Sternberg Press and Iaspis
$25.00 ·
What happens when you look at design as something more than a service-based relationship between client and designer? What new strategies and models help to question and challenge the limits of design? The second publication from the Swedish design think-tank Iaspis, this idea-packed reader focuses on investigative, speculative, and critically oriented design, especially how design relates to architecture. Inspired by an exhibition produced by the Architectural Association in London, the reader is based on four conversations between graphic designers about various aspects of design relating to their practices. It also contains a number of interviews and other texts linked to these conversations, and a broader discussion about design and transboundary practice.
Abake, Art, Criticism, Dexter Sinister, Experimental Jetset, Iaspis, Jonas Williamsson, Magnus Ericson, Mark Owens, Martin Frostner, Practise, RAM, Sara Teleman, Sternberg Press, Will Holder, Zak Kyes
Man Ray, La Photographie N’Est Pas L’Art
Softcover, 64 pp., offset 4/1, 160 x 245 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-3-902675-30-9
Published by Fotohof Editions
$39.00 ·
Photography is not art, proclaims Man Ray in the essay re-published here as an impeccable facsimile edition of the 1937 original. A pamphlet of loose sheets and 12 images, this publication re-visits an issue that was hotly controversial during the first half of the 20th century — Is Photography Art? — as examined in the influential Paris magazine L’Art. Despite the fact that Man Ray’s provocative works were among the photographs generally agreed by critics to be, in fact, art, Man Ray himself seems barely interested in considering the question. “There’s no point trying to find out if it’s an art,” he said. “Art is a thing of the past. We need something else. You’ve got to watch light at work. It’s light that creates. I sit down in front of my sheet of photographic paper and I think.”
Art, Fotohof Editions, Man Ray, Photography, RAM
Mariana Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman, A for Alibi
Softcover + dust jacket, 240 pp., offset 2/2, 160 x 240 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-933128-33-7
Published by Sternberg Press
$29.00 ·
A for Alibi explores the boundaries of scientific practice and art. The Uqbar Foundation invited a group of artists to perform research and develop projects using the impressive collection of historical instruments and optical devices. Fully illustrated, this book documents the artists’ projects as well as a symposium of the same name, where scientists and art historians lectured on the origins of modern visual culture.
Brian O’Connell, Irene Kopelman, James Beckett, Manuel Raeder, Maria Barnas, Mariana Castillo Deball, RAM, Sebastian Diaz Morales, Sternberg Press, Suchan Kinoshita, Tiemen Cocquyt, Tine Melzer, Uqbar Foundation
Dexter Sinister, Portable Document Format
Hardcover, 200 pp., offset 4/1, 4.25 x 6.75 inches
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-933128-85-6
Published by Sternberg Press
$20.00 ·
Over the past few years, Dexter Sinister has been interested in exploring contemporary publishing in its broadest, most exploded sense. The first part of this book consists of pieces of writings written since the conception of their New York basement workshop and bookstore in the summer of 2006. These writings were previously published online as PDFs in the Library at www.dextersinister.org. They were primarily written by Dexter Sinister or by one of a circle of regular collaborators, often for their house journal
Dot Dot Dot, or as supplements to other books or exhibitions.
The second part consists of reproductions of a series of lithographic proof prints. Accompanying these prints are extended captions individually produced for different exhibitions in 2008. Each caption was composed in line with the manner of its accompanying image. Although never intended as a set, a number of generic themes emerged, such as abstraction, mathematics, logic, and cooperation. The book intends to demonstrate how ideas from the first part have been rechannelled in the second.
Anthony Huberman, David Reinfurt, David Senior, Dexter Sinister, Edgar Allan Poe, Giles Weaver, Louis Kaplan, RAM, Rob Giampietro, Seth Price, Sternberg Press, Stuart Bailey, Walead Beshty
Slavs and Tatars & Ooga Booga present the west coast debut of Kidnapping Mountains. Featuring a selection and sale of Slavs and Tatars posters, editions, and printed matter.
Ooga Booga
943 N Broadway #203
Los Angeles CA 90012
14 January — 7 February 2010
Ooga Booga, RAM, Slavs and Tatars
Pages 7, In Translation
Softcover, 88 pp., offset 1/1, 200 x 260 mm
English and Farsi
Edition of 2000
ISSN 1583-3165
ISBN 978-90-5973-099-1
Published by Pages
$20.00 ·
This is the seventh annual issue of Pages, a publication that serves as a public discourse between the academic community in the West and Iran. The editors of Pages were inspired to scrutinize the various aspects of translation because they confront it with every issue of their journal. “There is clearly no such thing as a perfect substitute in translation,” the editors write. “There are instead displacements and interpretations, which remain nevertheless within the limits of the text.” An instance of cultural practice and political agency, translation does more than create a space between languages or among cultures. An innovative look at how translation affects the spatial and political arrangements of public and private spaces of cities, as communal or individual identities, in representations of state media, and in artistic practice itself.
Afarin Azad, Art, Babak Afrassiabi, Criticism, Culture, Nasrin Tabatabai, Pages, RAM, Steve Rushton
Jim Shaw, Dreams
Softcover, 288 pp., offset 1/1, 6 x 8 inches
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-0-9646426-0-7
Published by Smart Art Press
$30.00 ·
Most people consider their dreams private property — too personal, too scary, and too weird to share — but not internationally renowned Los Angeles artist Jim Shaw. In Dreams, a monumental compendium of painstaking pencil drawings that bring his nocturnal dream world to life, the artist unflinchingly reveals his innermost fears, obsessions, and sexual fantasies. A diarylike picture book, Dreams is an in-depth look at one of the most important facets of this seminal artist’s work.
Jim Shaw, RAM, Smart Art Press
Lewis Baltz, The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California
Hardcover/slipcase, 112 pp., offset 1/duotone, 285 x 275 mm
English and German
Edition of 2000
ISBN 0-9630785-6-9
Published by RAM, Steidl
$55.00 ·
Lewis Baltz, with his iconic, minimalist photos of suburban landscape, is considered the founder of the New Topographics movement. Reproduced for the first time, his earliest portfolio, The Tract Houses (1971), and his preliminary forays into a minimal aesthetic, The Prototype Works (1967-1976), illuminate Baltz’s drive to capture the reality of a sprawling Western ecology gone wild. Together with The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California, this trilogy reveals the indelible importance of Baltz in the development of contemporary photography. “Baltz turned his camera on the virtually featureless built environment of California … He pushed his compositions to an astringent minimum,” writes curator Sheryl Conkelton in an informative essay.
Art, Lewis Baltz, Photography, RAM, Sheryl Conkelton, Steidl, Whitney Museum
Lewis Baltz, The Prototype Works
Hardcover, 112 pp., offset 1/tritone, 285 x 275 mm
English and German
Edition of 2000
ISBN 0-9703860-5-2
Published by RAM, Steidl
$70.00 ·
Lewis Baltz, with his iconic, minimalist photos of suburban landscape, is considered the founder of the New Topographics movement. Reproduced for the first time, his earliest portfolio, The Tract Houses (1971), and his preliminary forays into a minimal aesthetic, The Prototype Works (1967-1976), illuminate Baltz’s drive to capture the reality of a sprawling Western ecology gone wild. Together with The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California, this trilogy reveals the indelible importance of Baltz in the development of contemporary photography. “Baltz turned his camera on the virtually featureless built environment of California … He pushed his compositions to an astringent minimum,” writes curator Sheryl Conkelton in an informative essay.
Art, Lewis Baltz, Photography, RAM, Sheryl Conkelton, Steidl, Whitney Museum
