Lee and Whitney Kaplan of Arcana Books curate their top five new reads out in November.
Animals That Saw Me (Volume 2) by Ed Panar
Can non-humans care? Of course they can. Can we?— Timothy Morton
Animals That Saw Me: Volume Two pairs a new collection of photographs from the observational wanderings of Ed Panar with an original essay on “being seen” by speculative realist philosopher Timothy Morton. Extending the project Panar began in 2011 with Animals That Saw Me: Volume One, this ‘sequel’ draws from recent work and newly discovered gems from his vast back catalogue to depict a series of brief, shared encounters with various (non-human) species — mammal, reptile, bird, insect — as they seem to behold the (human) photographer. Edited for the viewer’s maximum delight, the pictures embody a whimsical concept with surprisingly complex ramifications under the surface. Why do we distinguish between “us” and “them,” and what exists in the space between these distinctions? What does it mean to make “eye contact” with another species? What does the presence of a camera add to this phenomenon? Channeling the thoughtful humor, wonder and peculiar engagement with the world that made Panar’s first volume an instant hit, this volume revisits and digs deeper into the question: “Why do we assume that it’s only us who does the looking?”
God Save Sex Pistols – Deluxe Version
Stunningly thorough and thrilling look at the band and their place in history by maestros Johan Kugelberg and Jon Savage.
“A definitive celebration packed with previously unseen material of the original punk band—the group that defined a movement, energized a generation, and brought punk music and the safety-pin aesthetic to the mainstream. The Sex Pistols have defined the look, sound, and feel of the punk movement since they formed in London in 1975. Together for less than three years—a short run that included just four singles and one studio album before they broke up in 1978—their impact on the musical and cultural landscape of the last forty years is nothing short of remarkable. The Sex Pistols—Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock (later to be replaced by Sid Vicious)—were brought together by the cultural impresario Malcolm McLaren. Between the cultivated attitude of the players themselves, the aggressive management of McLaren, and the tremendous success of their era-defining album Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols, the band embodied the punk spirit and colored the worlds of music, fashion, youth culture, and design forever. Published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the band’s formation, Johan Kugelberg and Jon Savage draw on an unprecedented wealth of material—from McLaren’s handwritten letters to never-before-seen photographs of the band, Jamie Reid’s iconic album artwork, and a range of ephemera from concert tickets to fanzines—to produce the most comprehensive visual history of the band ever produced and a bible of popular culture for years to come.”
(c) GOD SAVE SEX PISTOLS edited by Johan Kugelberg with Jon Savage and Glenn Terry, published by Rizzoli, special edition released by Anthology Editions
An original Nollywood film poster wraps this beautifully designed book delivering an authentic piece of the city to the audience. Lagos defies Western ideas of urban order. However, what looks like anarchic activity is actually governed by a set of informal yet ironclad rules. To a new comer to the city, these rules are an absolute mystery but in the shouting, and blaring of horns, and the pushing and shoving of crowds, everyone has a place to go and a way to get there.
Robin Hammond’s ‘My Lagos’ introduces us to the color, energy and chaos of Africa’s largest city. Full bleed color photographs take us on a journey through bustling Lagos streets and into the homes of the rich, poor, and rising middle class. ‘My Lagos’ opens our eyes to an Africa rarely seen in western media.
Placed over and between these views of Lagos is a series of large format Polaroid portraits accompanied by quotes from the sitters themselves. A businessman, an actor, a fisherman, a pastor, a prostitute speak of their hopes and dreams in this city of strivers.
Intimate Geometries: The Art and Life of Louise Bourgeois
The comprehensive survey.
In a career spanning nearly 75 years, Louise Bourgeois created a vast body of work that enriched the formal language of modern art while it expressed her intense inner struggles with unprecedented candor and unpredictable invention. Her solo 1982 retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art launched an extraordinarily productive late career, making her a much-honored and vivid presence on the international art scene until her death in 2010 at the age of 98.
Trained as a painter and printmaker, Bourgeois embraced sculpture as her primary medium and experimented with a range of materials over the years, including marble, plaster, bronze, wood, and latex. Bourgeois contributed significantly to Surrealism, Postminimalist, and installation art, but her work always remained fiercely independent of style or movement.
With more than 1000 illustrations, Intimate Geometries: The Art and Life of Louise Bourgeois comprehensively surveys her immense oeuvre in unmatched depth. Writing from a uniquely intimate perspective, as a close personal friend of Bourgeois, and drawing on decades of research, Robert Storr critically evaluates her achievements and reveals the complexity and passion of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.
Robert Polidori: 60 Feet Road Bhatiya Nagar Facades
“In his new book, Robert Polidori presents us with a large-format photograph of a city block in an improvisational, auto-constructed settlement in Mumbai, India. In an almost seamless progression that appears to expand like an accordion or folding-screen, the photograph is composed of multiple images imperceptibly overlaid and welded together in a complex process to form a panoramic view. Applying remote sensing techniques that are normally used in space cartography to street photography, Polidori ventures a photographic attempt to come to terms with the phenomena of adjacencies, observing and beholding what’s next to what. In this way he minutely scans the urban landscape, recording the precarious and temporary nature of the provisional and yet psychologically rich and in fact highly individualized dwellings. “
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