Looking for some new reads to close out your summer? In this month’s edition of the Design & Art Book List, expect to find books on architecture, interior design, and designers as well as on plenty of contemporary artists such as Wade Guyton, Rachel Rose, Sascha Braunig, Sarah Charlesworth and more. Another highlight included in the August 2017 book column is the catalogue for the new Parrish Art Museum exhibition, “From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism 1969 to Today.”
“Living in Wood: Architecture & Interior Design”
An important material for many centuries and used in countless diverse ways before being almost despised for a long time in the modern era, wood has now become a source of fascination and inspiration in contemporary architecture. The sustainable and locally available building material is easy to process, structurally powerful and simple to combine with other materials.
Along with these practical considerations, it is the unlimited abundance of creative possibilities that accounts for the ever-growing popularity of residential dwellings made of wood. From one-story bungalows to multi-story dwellings, timber houses are at the forefront of the development of contemporary architecture and design. This volume presents the creative diversity of individual solutions from across the globe.
BASIC FACTS: “Living in Wood: Architecture & Interior Design” is written by Chris Van Uffelen. Published by Braun Publishing. Release Date: August 1, 2017. Hardcover | 271 pages | $49.95
“House Is a House Is a House Is a House Is a House: Architectures and Collaborations of Johnston Marklee”
This book brings together the work of the Los Angeles based architectural workshop Johnston Marklee since it’s founding in 1998. Unified by a conceptual approach to each project, the firm's work is recognized internationally for its engagement with contemporary art practices while being deeply rooted in the history and foundations of the discipline.
Reflecting on Johnston Marklee's design process in drawing upon an extensive network of experts in related fields, the book is structured along seven conversations and seven artist interpretations of Johnston Marklee's buildings and projects. A comprehensive list of work illustrated with small photographs and diagrams will conclude this monograph.
BASIC FACTS: “House Is a House Is a House Is a House Is a House: Architectures and Collaborations of Johnston Marklee” is written by Reto Geiser (Editor). Published by Birkhauser; 2 edition. Release Date: August 7, 2017. Paperback | 320 pages | $39.99
“What is a Museum Now?: Snøhetta and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art”
“What is a Museum Now?” asks about the role of a museum in contemporary society. All of Snøhetta's work is formed by the interaction between humans and their physical surroundings. Regarding this connection, the design studio recognized that a museum is a mediator between art and life.
This book contains a detailed documentation of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's expansion, conducted by Snøhetta. The studio evolved the SFMOMA as a new form of art appreciation where the experience is an extension of the life of the city itself. Accompanied by behind-the-scenes sketches, drawings and photographs that detail the design and construction process, this book is in itself an intimate engagement with the building, its art, its directors and curators, its inhabitants and its creators.
BASIC FACTS: “What is a Museum Now?: Snøhetta and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art” is written by Snøhetta (Author), Rebecca Solnit (Foreword), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Contributor), Justin Davidson (Contributor) and Andrew Russeth (Contributor). Published by Lars Müller. Release Date: August 17, 2017. Hardcover | 288 pages | $49.00
“Simon Conder: Small Works”
“Simon Conder: Small Works” is the chronological, pictorial, word-free book of Simon Conder’s architecture over the last twenty years. Conder trained in London at both the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the Industrial Design Department of the Royal College of Art. Prior to that, he designed and made furniture, and has worked closely with skilled craftspeople to create buildings, generally at a small scale, ever since.
His work is about many things, but paramount is the desire to make things well, and to respond genuinely to the particular requirements of the client, the site and the budget. Although always a very small studio, averaging three to four people, Simon Conder Associates has already won 40 architecture and design awards, and has twice been shortlisted for the biennial Mies van der Rohe Award for the best building in Europe.
BASIC FACTS: “Simon Conder: Small Works” is written by Simon Conder (Editor). Published by Artifice Books on Architecture. Release Date: August 29, 2017. Hardcover | 208 pages | $44.95
“LOT-EK: Objects + Operations”
LOT-EK is a design practice, who’s work reveals transformations of ordinary things—from their famous shipping container projects onward—combining maker culture and hacker culture into beautiful and radical visions for sustainable and meaningful living.
“LOT-EK: Objects + Operations” surveys dozens of projects—built, un-built and in-progress; polemical, practical, and in-between—complemented by photographs from LOT-EK’s multi-year URBAN SCAN project, a vast photographic document of infrastructure and incident, as well as essays by Thomas de Monchaux and interviews with founding partners Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano.
BASIC FACTS: “LOT-EK: Objects + Operations” is written by Ada Tolla, Giuseppe Lignano and Thomas de Monchaux. Published by The Monacelli Press. Release Date: August 29, 2017. Hardcover | 400 pages | $50.00
“Creating Ourselves: The Self in Art”
Accompanying a yearlong display of the London-based ISelf Collection, this publication examines individual identity, the body and the human condition from the perspectives of 20 artists. Taking the display of the Collection at the Whitechapel Gallery as its springboard, this book looks generally at the question of the self in modern and contemporary art, and the ways in which artists are thinking about being and identity as an individual, in relation to others, to society and the wider world.
Featuring over 100 works by a world-class roster of artists including Francis Alÿs, Fiona Banner, Phyllida Barlow, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, Alex Katz, Sarah Lucas, Mike Nelson, Cindy Sherman, John Stezaker and Wolfgang Tillmans, the catalog also includes quotes by influential writers and theorists chosen by the artists, revealing how they have approached the question, “who or what exactly are we?”
BASIC FACTS: “Creating Ourselves: The Self in Art” is written by Glenn Adamson, Frances Borzello, Nicholas Cullinan, Amelia Jones and Emily Butler (Editor). Published by Whitechapel Gallery. Release Date: August 22, 2017. Paperback | 224 pages | $40.00
“Wade Guyton: Das New Yorker Atelier”
Over the past two years, Wade Guyton (born 1972) has created a compelling new series of artworks, documented in all their breadth and complexity in “Wade Guyton: Das New Yorker Atelier.” Instead of the minimal, repeated letters that characterize his best-known work, Guyton’s new paintings feature a diverse range of imagery, all digitally captured.
Taking snapshots and screen-captures and printing them on his large printer, Guyton has created works that reflect, in their content and their making, the rapid expansion of the digital code into all areas of life. Published to accompany the first exhibition of these new works at the Museum Brandhorst, this volume also features texts by Johanna Burton and Achim Hochdörfer.
BASIC FACTS: “Wade Guyton: Das New Yorker Atelier” is written by Achim Hochdörfer (Author, Editor, Contributor), Bernhard Maaz (Author), Wade Guyton (Artist) and Johanna Burton (Contributor). Published by Walther König, Cologne. Release Date: August 22, 2017. Hardcover | 356 pages | $74.29
“Rachel Rose”
The work of acclaimed New York–based artist Rachel Rose (born 1986) interweaves historical recordings with her own visual material, combining voices, eras and places to create collage-like moving imagery.
The artist's distinct editing language in her videos reflects on time, death and embodiment within the contemporary flood of information and images. This fully illustrated volume, published to accompany a new installation of Rose’s work at Kunsthaus Bregenz, includes essays addressing the complexity of the artist’s works by curator Thomas D. Trummer, art historian Chus Martínez, writer Claudia La Rocco, and writer and curator Laura McLean-Ferris.
BASIC FACTS: “Rachel Rose” is written by Claudia La Rocco, Chus Martinez, Laura McLean-Ferris, Jorge Pailos, Thomas Trummer (Editor) and Rachel Rose (Artist). Published by Kunsthaus Bregenz. Release Date: August 22, 2017. Paperback | 144 pages | $45.00
“Sascha Braunig”
This is the first volume on the paintings of acclaimed Canadian-born, Portland-based painter Sascha Braunig (born 1983), whose brightly rendered, optically contorted bodies and heads seem to turn on themselves and on their settings.
In dreamlike scenes, where repetition and patterning are foregrounded, Braunig’s figures emit an extrasensory glow: flaring with reflected color, they are iridescent beings whose very skin seems to be a source of psychic power.
BASIC FACTS: “Sascha Braunig” is written by Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer and Sascha Braunig. Published by Foxy Production. Release Date: August 22, 2017. Hardcover | 128 pages | $30.00
“Sarah Charlesworth”
Covering an artistic career that evolved over nearly half a century, this comprehensive overview illustrates the wide range of Sarah Charlesworth’s art and legacy. Charlesworth explored an array of artistic expressions, from conceptual photography in the 1970s, appropriation of images associated with the Pictures Generation in the 1980s, and studio-based photography using props and setups beginning in the 1990s.
At each turn, her growth as an artist paralleled the evolution of photography as a contemporary medium. This illustrated monograph offers a historical perspective on Charlesworth’s art and reflects extensive access to her archive, including notebooks, sketchbooks, diaries, studio logs, test prints, and many never-before-published images, revealing her thought processes over time and their articulation within and across her career.
BASIC FACTS: “Sarah Charlesworth” is written by Rochelle Steiner (Author), Eric Crosby (Contributor), Mark Godfrey (Contributor), Thomas Lawson (Contributor) and Rebecca Morse (Contributor). Published by Prestel. Release Date: August 25, 2017. Hardcover | 232 pages | $49.95
“From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism 1969 to Today”
This illustrated book examines Photorealism in contemporary art from its roots in the late 1960s to today. Photorealism reintroduced straightforward representation into an art world dominated by Pop Art, Minimalism, Land Art, and Performance Art. Often misunderstood as being overtly traditional, artists at the vanguard of this important movement were trailblazers.
Use of the camera as the foundation of painterly expression is common today, but in the 1970s Photorealists were embarking on a groundbreaking way of seeing and depicting the world. Drawing on major public and private collections, the book features works by the masters of Photorealism. Along with numerous illustrations, the book also includes an introductory essay by noted artist and writer Richard Kalina, and an in-depth essay by Terrie Sultan, focusing on photorealistic watercolors and works on paper.
BASIC FACTS: “From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism 1969 to Today” is written by Terrie Sultan and Richard Kalina (Contributor). Published by Prestel. Release Date: August 25, 2017. Paperback | 128 pages | $39.95
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