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Thoughts on a book
The Most Beautiful Swiss Books competition was established to promote and reward top-quality book design in Switzerland. It was established at the behest of the famous typographer and designer Jan Tschichold in 1943. The competition is open to graphic designers, publishers and printers. An internationally staffed jury, currently chaired by Cornel Windlin, selects the most beautiful Swiss books each year.
The awarded books become part of an exhibition which travels to various cities around the world. When the books stop off in London this December, they will be the subject of discussion at ‘Thoughts on a Book’, an evening of talks at the St Bride Foundation.
Each speaker has chosen a book to present. They will hold a 10 minute presentation about their experience of reading that particular book. We will finish the event with a Q&A chaired by David Crowley.
Exhibition talk: 7pm
December 14, 2011
St Bride Library
Bride Lane, Fleet Street
London EC4Y 8EE
NY Art Book Fair
Printed Matter presents the sixth annual NY Art Book Fair, from September 30 to October 2, 2011, at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. A preview will be held on the evening of Thursday, September 29th. Free and open to the public, and featuring more than 200 exhibitors, the NY Art Book Fair is the world’s premier event for artists’ books, contemporary art catalogs and monographs, art periodicals, and artist zines. Exhibitors include international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and independent publishers from twenty-one countries.
THE NY ART BOOK FAIR
September 30 – October 2, 2011
Preview: Thursday, Sept. 29, 6–9 p.m.
MoMA PS1
Supreme book
Recently published by Rizzoli, this book is a visual history of the brand that includes an introduction by Glenn O’Brien, an essay by Aaron Bondaroff and an interview between Kaws and James Jebbia. The book surveys many of the brand’s products over the years including projects with Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Damien Hirst, Public Enemy and Lou Reed, among others. The book also includes a product index from Supreme’s archive.
The Selby in Your Place
We recently got our hands on a copy of ‘The Selby in Your Place’, a book by Californian photographer Todd Selby, who documents real-life spaces and the personalities behind them. The book includes 33 homes with handwritten interviews, complete with doodles, from a cast of creative characters including Karl Lagerfeld, Purple Magazine’s Olivier Zahm, model Erin Wasson, Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler.
Partners & Spade Books
Check out two new additions to Partners & Spade′s ongoing publishing program of concept photo books. BENEFITS OF LOOKING UP contemplates the surprising and uplifting moment of finding a balloon trapped in a tree, while I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN looks at explores the seemingly impossible through images of plants growing through cracks in concrete. After dozens of titles with limited print runs, sold only in their gallery and select stores, Harper Collins hope to bring these to a wider audience with purchase available at www.harpercollins.com for $10 each.
Alexsandra Mir: ‘Triumph’
Inspired by a friend who had been a famous athlete in his youth and kept mementos of his achievements, Mir placed an ad in the local newspaper in her home town of Palermo, Italy, asking for old sports trophies. Within a few months, Mir collected 2,529 trophies and had them cleaned and archived. In her solo show at the Shirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, the trophies were displayed individually and in groups on plinths and the floor, or piled on top of each other like detritus. Mir explored the power of the trophy, both a coveted symbol of accomplishment and a garish, mass-produced item of little value. For those who missed the exhibition, check out the results in this new book published by Walter Konig. Available now on www.artbook.com
Tauba Auerbach HERE AND NOW/AND NOWHERE
Tauba Auerbach, opens her Here and Now/and Nowhere show at NYC’s Deitch Projects. Auerbach is known for her inventive twists on typefaces, creating magical new languages from the known English alphabet. Here and Now/and Nowhere, however, will feature more than just letter paintings and drawings; Auerbach will also be showcasing three-dimensional crumple paintings and fold paintings, as well as static photographs, and the show’s central piece.
September 03 — October 17, 2009
Deitch Projects, 18 Wooster Street, New York
‘The Sartorialist’: The Book
At last, the long awaited book by Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist. Following the same format as his acclaimed blog, Shuman documents the moving world of street fashion from New York to Paris and beyond.
Available through Amazon.com
Kinokuniya
Since 1981, Kinokuniya, the hip Japanese bookstore chain, has served New York’s Japanese-language readers from its outlet at Rockefeller Center with it’s impressive stock of imported Japanese paperbacks, latest issues of hard-to-find magazines, DVDs (such as the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki - Spirited Away) and CDs. Now the company has decided that Japanese is no longer the center of its universe. It’s new store overlooking Bryant Park will house a majority of English-language titles in an effort to expand their audience. But Japanophiles fear not: The new three-storey store, one of nine Kinokuniyas in the United States, is stocked with plenty of Japanese-language novels, fashion magazines and a huge manga (comic) collection in both Japanese and English. The old store will close at the end of the year.
Avenue of the Americas, near 40th Street
Books are also sold online at www.kinokuniya.com
Jean Philippe Delhomme ‘The Cultivated Life’
Jean-Philippe Delhomme is a prolific name in the world of illustration and often described as the Parisian answer to the smart cartoons that appear in the New Yorker. His instantly recognizable style is world-renowned in a range of media - from chic television ads for Saab to the boutique campaigns for Barneys and fashion advertising. Drawing from the trials and tribulations of the contemporary lifestyle—the design addict cautiously circling the latest modern furniture piece in an upscale boutique, or finding the perfect outfit to convey one’s current philosophy—Delhomme chicly illustrates the humor in all that surrounds him. This monograph published by Rizzoli, the first-ever English compilation of his work, includes over 100 illustrations and an insightful essay about Delhomme’s work.
Corporate Diversity
Swiss Graphic Design and Advertising by Geigy, 1940–1970
This book is the first comprehensive presentation of Geigy design, whose studio was the launching pad for one of the great periods of Swiss graphic design in the 1950s and 1960s, and demonstrates the importance of the country’s contribution to the international history of design. The studio was lead by Max Schmid and employed Karl Gerstner, Armin Hofmann and Herbert Leupin among others.
19.8 x 26.4 cm, 208 pages, 385 illustrations, hardcover
100+ Nieves Zines at Printed Matter
From April 4th – May 23rd 2009 Printed Matter will be showing an exhibition with the legendary Swiss publisher Nieves. The exhibition will feature a full retrospective of Nieveʼs ʻzine program since 2004 as well as a selection of the books published by the press since its founding in 2001. The publications have taken on a variety of forms, from limited edition, photocopied zines, to more-formally recognized hardcover, perfect-bound and offset books.
Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1976 by artists and art workers with the mission to foster the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists’ books and other artists’ publications.
Printed Matter, 195 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011 Tel. 212 925 0325
do you read me?!
do you read me?! offers a selected assortment of magazines and readings from around the world. The spectrum ranges from fashion, photography and art through architecture, interior and design to cultural matters in general.
Magazine und Lektüre der Gegenwart, Auguststrasse 28, Berlin-Mitte
On Display
Veenman Publishers have released “On Display” by the Dutch master of still life photography, Maurice Scheltens.
In “On Display” Maurice Scheltens demonstrates the art of staging and reassembling objects into surreal miniature worlds. His style is playful and highly personalised and his work ranges from art pieces to applied projects and editorial commissions. Rearranged and reedited for this glossy-book, the photographs in On Display represent an overview of Scheltens’s work of the last ten years. Alongside commissions from Vitra and Nike, Fantastic Man and Wallpaper, it also includes work for galleries and museums. An essay by Emily King reflects on Scheltens’s multi-layered constructions and cross-references the worlds of fashion, design, architecture, painting, photography and graphics.