The Iconic House: Architectural Masterworks since 1900, Dominic Bradbury (Thames & Hudson) $65

Bradbury’s survey of architecturally significant houses overwhelms with the sheer variety of beauty contained within. From the 1927 Melnikov House in Moscow to the 1962 Milam Residence in Jacksonville, Florida to the 1991 Casa Klotz in rural coastal Chile, Bradbury has covered the entire world. In his introduction, he quotes architect Richard Meier:

As an expression of architectural ideas they [houses] are an essential type. Formally they are likely to offer the most intimate scale at which to work. And symbolically they have always maintained a potent force, both as a vivid representation of lives inside their walls and as a powerful influence over the changing course of architecture over centuries.

Bradbury’s succinct descriptions accompany the photographs well, offering thumbnail surveys of the houses’ respective architects, their work, and the manifestation of their ideas in the house showcased. The book includes a useful Houses by Type index, bibliography, and gazetteer.

The Iconic House ranks among the best coffee table books: immediately engaging and divided into digestible portions, but equally informative and smart, an invitation to learn more.

Artist Wes Lang, New York (p. 104)

Creative Space: Urban Homes of Artists and Innovators, Francesca Gavin (Lawrence King) $35

An interesting meditation on space but also on material possession, Gavin catalogues a wide range of the places and spaces inhabited by cultural creatives. Featuring homes of all sizes, from Barcelona, Berlin, London, New York, and Tokyo, each entry begins with a brief interview and biographical sketch of the respective artist, followed by a portrait as inhabitant, then a selection of photographs of the place itself. My favorites include Leah McSweeney and Rob Cristofaro’s New York apartment, which they call “a loose interpretation of who we are as people,” for its simple hanging swing, to one side of the living room, and Hardy Blechman’s London house, for his juxtaposition of an Eames Lounge Chair andOttoman with a small, whimsical woven tiger rug. All the homes considered have been tidied, and one can sense that things have been very intentionally placed, though it’s unclear whether that’s been done as show, for these photographs, or for some underlying compulsion, as part of the artist’s everyday.

Gavin’s selection of artists, from graphic designers to filmmakers to architects, is varied, as are the spaces themselves, ranging from high-ceilinged modern showrooms to toy playrooms on steroids. The selection of cities is appropriate but not exhaustive, and—to my biased chagrin—does not include Los Angeles. Nonetheless, we at Molossus have decided to forgive that trespass, as Gavin’s book inspired us enough to showcase our own creative space, as a sort of unofficial extension of her work.

Less professionally photographed and less considered, Molossus presents its own creative space in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, in celebration of Francesca Gavin’s Creative Space: Urban Homes of Artists and Innovators.

Art Director Geoff Gossett’s Drawing Table (Above Left), Editor David Shook’s Banjolele (Above Right), Editor David Shook’s Desk (Below)

DS

Albertinum Dresden | 1999.

BNF Paris | 1998.

Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar | 2004.

Biblioteca Nacional Madrid | 2003.

MOCA Los Angeles | 2000.

Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden | 2002.

Národní knihovna Praha | 2004.

Candida Höfer photographs rooms in public places that are centers of cultural life, such as libraries, museums, theaters, cafés, universities, as well as historic houses and palaces. Each meticulously composed space is marked with the richness of human activity, yet largely devoid of human presence. Whether it be a photograph of a national library or a hotel lobby, Höfer’s images ask us to conduct a distanced, disengaged examination through the window she has created.

Not purely architectural photographs, her rhythmically patterned images present a universe of interiors constructed by human intention, unearthing patterns of order, logic, and disruption imposed on these spaces by absent creators and inhabitants. Her photos of ornate, baroque interiors achieve images with extreme clarity and legibility while the camera maintains an observant distance, never getting too close to its subject.

Born in Eberswalde, just north of Berlin, in 1944,  Höfer was a student at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art from 1973 to 1982, embracing film before going on to study photography under the tutelage of Bernd Becher. Since 1975 she has taken part in numerous group exhibitions and released a number of volumes with Thames & Hudson, including Candida Höfer: A Monograph, published in 2003.

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Candida Höfer | Libraries

Introduction by Umberto Eco

Thames & Hudson

2005

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ICA

Thames & Hudson

A

Myasnoye, 1980

Myasnoye, 1980

Myasnoye, September 1980

Myasnoye, September 26, 1981

Myasnoye, September 26, 1981

Myasnoye, September 26, 1981

Myasnoye, September 26, 1981

Myasnoye, October 2, 1981

Seated on the railing of a balcony  against a backdrop of pale birch trees, a handsome woman, her lips closed, gives a hint of a smile. A young solider, his machine gun slung over his shoulder, stares ahead with an intense melancholy, his face stiffening under his bearskin cap, decorated with the five-pointed star of the Red Army. An old house, it’s logs worn and split by the passage of time, stands alone, immersed in the light, along the line of shadow at the edge of a wood.

These are Andrei Tarkovsky’s most beloved black and white images, the ones crucial to his destiny: his mother Maria Ivanovna, his father, Arseny, his childhood home at Ignatievo. Tarkovsky selected, reproduced, and pasted these and other photographs from his family album into a black diary he carried with him. A visual sequence of his life, a presence from the past that would accompany the director in his preparation and making of the film The Mirror and would stay with him, like a portable flashback that could be replayed again and again in moments of home-sickness throughout his short life, right up to his exile in Italy and his death in Paris on December 29, 1986.

Acceptance of the history of the people and the family of his birth, acknowledgment of the cultural tradition in which he was raised, a profound love of the desire for freedom and the creativity of mankind, made in the image and semblance of God: these are the foundations of Tarkovsky’s art. ‘In all my films,’ he wrote, ‘it seemed to me important to try to establish the links which connect people… those links which connect me with humanity, and all of us with everything that surrounds us. I need to have a sense that I myself am in this world as a successor, that there is nothing accidental about my being here. …I always felt it important to establish that I myself belong to a particular tradition, culture, circle of people or ideas.’*

The vitality of his sense of belonging also comes from accepting, acknowledging and loving the little images of his own genealogy, these humble traces of daily life observed through memory, viewed by remembering. Just as the dream sequence that runs through Ivan’s Childhood, awakens the little orphan to the sacrificial fulfillment of his destiny, so too does The Mirror reflect the decisive moments of the story by literally reconstructing those black and white photographs on the set as backgrounds for some of the scenes.

*Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair, London, 1986

1/3

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Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids

Edited by Giovanni Chiaramonte & Andrei Tarkovsky

Introduction by Tonino Guerra

Thames & Hudson

2004

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Giovanni Chiaramonte

Andrei Tarkovsky

R

Bruno Barbey

Um livro no mínimo excepcional. Publicado pela Thames & Hudson, a terceira edição de Magnum Magnum conta com mais de 400 imagens escolhidas pelos próprios fotógrafos da agência. Não é apenas uma compilação de imagens memoráveis dos seus 60 anos, mas um olhar da Magnum por ela mesma.

O livro traz fotografias que remontam toda a história da agência. Todas as imagens são analisadas por fotógrafos atuais da Magnum, que comentam as razões de suas escolhas.

Ao todo foram selecionadas imagens de 69 fotógrafos da Magnum, entre eles Bruno Barbey, René Burri, Robert Capa, Henri-Cartier Bresson e Bruce Davinson. Para conferir a lista completa dos fotógrafos selecionados, clique aqui.

For many millenia,

man has been striving after happiness;

but he is not happy, Why not?

Because he cannot achive it,

becuase he does not know the way -

both these reasons.

Above all, however,

because in our earthly lives

there must not be ultimate happiness,

but only the aspiration towards it,

in the future;

there has to be suffering,

becuase it’s through suffering,

in the struggle between good and evil,

that the spirit is forged.

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Andrei Tarkovsky

Instant Light, Tarkovsky Polaroids

Thames & Hudson

R

032 Magazine
Had to grab one of these this morning too – big feature and interview with Keep Left favourite Mike Mills, and a good interview with legendary photography publisher Gerhard Steidl.

Zygmunt Bauman – Liquid Times
Picked up in Tate Modern this morning. Went at 10AM and had the whole shop to myself – some heavy art book browsing ensued.

Stewart Home – Down And Out In Shoreditch And Hoxton
Not sure how I’ve read so many books about London and didn’t manage to pick up a Stewart Home book along the way. So, long overdue, I thought I’d start here. Our protagonist is an East End prostitute with a penchant for art theory and literary criticism, who intersperses sexual favours with acerbic dialogue on art, literature and culture.

Instant Light – Tarkovsky Polaroids
Another one that has been floating around the periphary that i finally got around to picking up at last. A collection of polaroids by Russian filmmaker / director Andrey Tarkovsky, including text, verse and essays. A beautiful book.

Ce nouveau Guide du Design, de l’éditeur Thames & Hudson,
vient juste de sortir et studio manzano y est représenté
à travers une de nos créations.
Nous n’avons pas encore eu le plaisir de feuilleter ce livre,
mais nous avons hâte de voir ce que cela va donner.

J’ai mis un lien vers le site de l’éditeur (sur l’image).

Back to Thames + Hudson, who have another anniversary this year. Next month they are releasing a 25th Anniversary Edition of Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper’s Subway Art (1984). No wrap-around covers on this bad-boy. It’s a larger format, revamped version with an extra 70 photos that were not included in the original edition. That’s more like it.

As I mused over this re-issue, I started to think about the personal significance of this book, and especially it’s sister publication Spraycan Art (1987),

The first Thames + Hudson book, indeed the first art book I ever bought was Spraycan Art. In 1987 I was in the second year of comprehensive school, spending my evenings recording Hip Hop and House tracks off the radio and editing together my own early mix-tapes instead of playing football or stealing cars or whatever everyone else was doing. Being into Hip Hop meant I was, by extension, interested in graffiti. I spent a few weeks visiting my local WH Smith’s and thumbing through it while I saved up enough of my paper round money to buy it. I then spent not hours, but days months and years studying it: learning the artists names and styles, copying the graffiti letters onto my school books and submitting 3D typefaces to my bemused art teacher. Subway Art was published earlier, and focussed on the New York Subway trains of the late 70’s and early 80’s, artists like Dondi White, Seen and Lady Pink. Although it only came out three years later, Spraycan Art showed that in a very short space of time graffiti as an art-form had evolved rapidly: Type was now superbly complex, characters were virtual, and the different ideas presented by Futura 2000 (abstract), Mode2 (character illustration) and Vulcan (typography) showed that Graffiti had potential to go further still. Most importantly to me at the time, Spraycan Art showed graffiti not as a localised activity on New York Subways, but now as a Global movement. The fire was rapidly spreading along with all the other Hip Hop Elements – Rapping, Breaking, DJ’ing.

In the North East of England in the 80’s, my total lack of interest in football meant there really wasn’t much else to connect to, to identify with. All the colourful graffiti letters and the determination of these vandals to ‘get over’ with that ‘by any means necessary’ attitude was of course rather inspirational to a teenage kid. I wasn’t alone. These two books opened up graffiti to the UK, and changed things forever.

Compared to now, the UK in the late 80’s was like living in a permanent communications blackout. No mobile phones. No internet. Three and a bit TV channels. No digital cameras. No pirate radio outside of London. No magazines to speak of. This was the level of pre-digital isolation we lived in, which is why opening a book like Spraycan Art in WH Smith’s was akin to finding Narnia in the back of your wardrobe.

Info-lag, the digital disease of web-users, didn’t exist then either – we had so little information on anything, we relished and worshipped whatever we could get our hands on. And the only way to see masses of graffiti in the UK in the 80’s was through these two Thames + Hudson books. They went on to be known as the most stolen books ever published, I have had to replace my own copies about three or four times over the years having loaned them out or simply misplaced them.

I didn’t become a graffiti writer myself. I didn’t really have the nerve. In retrospect I might as well have been, as my early teens were spent walking along train lines, through tunnels, alleys, parks, under bridges, everywhere, with a battered camera, seeking out graffiti pieces. Graffiti taught me to love cities. I became a juvenile urban detective – seeking out walls, spaces, spots and hidden halls of fame in derelict warehouses. I would see untouched open walls and think “yeah, perfect spot that”, see a tag written so high up on a wall I couldn’t work out how it had been done, or best of all, find a huge graffiti piece, paint still fresh, discarded cans lying on the ground. All this hunting and exploring made me feel familiar and at home in cities and to appreciate the inner geography of them. I still do this now – wandering around cities happily lost, waiting to see what turns up.

Spraycan Art was not just my bible, it served as a travel guide too. I used it to navigate my way around London. To Westbourne Park, Ladbroke Grove and to the same walls under the Westway flyover that Mode2 and the Chrome Angels had painted.

It was these explorations, using the book, that I now realise influenced many of my aspirations. I can attribute living in London largely to Spraycan Art. As I searched for graffiti (and record shops), I discovered Four Corners Playground, Camden Town, Soho, Covent Garden, Brixton, West London, North London and naturally decided this was the place for me. How could my North East market town compare? By hunting for graffiti, I discovered London, and was enraptured. At the same time, a teenage passion for graffiti art, book covers, record sleeves and club-flyers, led to a more academic appreciation of graphic design, illustration, architecture and photography. I ended up working as a DJ, working in record shops, book shops, design stores, clubs – somehow keeping my creative personal interests of hip hop and books linked to my work. In this context, my life has more of a logical narrative thread than I thought. Rather than a series of random, disparate events and momentary decisions (I’ve had plenty of those) I can see how Spraycan Art and Subway Art acted as foundational influences on all of my life experience. I now run a design store / bookshop that sells over 10,000 Thames + Hudson books a year, so perhaps I’m unconsciously paying my dues.

The most valuable thing that Graffiti and Hip Hop Culture has taught me is the DIY attitude. The idea that things can be done lo-fi, by ourselves, and we don’t have to follow the typical path. One of the other beautiful things about graffiti is it’s temporary nature, it’s creative futility. Walls are painted over again and again, memories are lost, re-written, and nothing stays around for long. The most inspiring, life affirming aspect of graffiti is the process; the act of doing, of engagement and application. Leaving a mark, taking your space, making it your own, even if just for a fleeting moment, has many positive parallels with a broader approach and attitude towards everyday life.

2009 is the 60th anniversary of art book publishers Thames + Hudson. Judging by their latest catalogue, they are clearly excited about it.

Part of the celebrations see them re-issuing 20 of their most successful books ever with jazzed up ‘60 years of’ covers. Look closely though, and you’ll notice that these anniversary jackets slip over the existing books. Cynical types (yeah.. okay) can only conclude that this altogether convenient design allows them to jacket up piles of excess copies in their warehouse and then sell them as new editions. There’s nothing really wrong with doing that, but as anniversary parties celebrations go, it is a bit like leaving a box of party poppers in the rain.

There are a few greats in there, 1991’s The Shock of The New and 1997’s Sensation are all commendable enough, but it’s generally a highly commercial list, the earliest book is from 1980, and, as much as I like them all, I don’t think the 2005 book Sneakers or the 2007 Street Sketchbook stand up as ‘classic’ titles. For trainer books, Booth Clibborn’s book is the one that set things off, and while Street Sketchbook is a fine publication (more so because Dreph is in it), it’s not a genre classic, even though it’s still a bestseller. So, as much as I admire Thames + Hudson as outstanding publishers of all things art; if you’re having a party, fill some balloons.

I don’t want to be mean of course, I’m a Thames + Hudson fan-boy at heart. If I wanted to comment on big art publishers doing dull things for money, there are far more open goals for target practice. But that’s a whole other post…

Por Carol Matias

A editora inglesa Thames & Hudson em sua série Photofile publica o trabalho de alguns dos grandes nomes da fotografia. Um dos fotógrafos é Duane Michals. Nascido em 1932 na Pensilvânia, Estados Unidos, o fotógrafo apresenta suas narrativas fotográficas exibindo um trabalho artístico voltado a temas como morte, fantasia e realidade. Em alguns dos seus mais conhecidos ensaios como “The Fallen Angel” ou “The Voyage of the Spirit after Death”, Michals faz uso de sobreposições e duplas-exposições. O uso dessas técnicas condiz com a ambiguidade presente em suas fotografias, oscilando entre elementos sutis e oníricos.

 Os ensaios de Michals são apresentados com suas anotações à mão, aproximando-os a pequenas histórias.

… I want to be like Iris Apfel.  This style maven clearly finds the finds joy in life… which is now a major priority of mine after seeing The Bucket List.  She is so fabulously unique and at ease diving into a little bit of everything using only a subtle dose of restraint.

I have to add her book, Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel, to my collection… you should too!

‘Everytime I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well. Only twenty years earlier.’ Banksy

Long before there was “street art” as we now know it, there was Blek le Rat. He was one of the first graffiti writers in Europe; one of the first people to use stencils to make public art on the street; one of the first, if not the first, to break away from the dominance of New York graffiti style; and one of the first to use icons instead of writing his name.

He has been an inspiration to artists all over the world, from JayBadbc to Oseas Duarte to Shepard Fairey to Banksy – whose work is often an homage to le Rat’s iconography.

A legendary figure in street art Blek Le Rat (Xavier Prou) was born in Paris in 1951. Thought by many to be the father of stencil graffiti as an art form Blek began his unique, complex and intelligent stencil works on the streets of Paris in the 1980’s.

His work has once again come to the fore (ironically thanks to the popularity of Banksy). There is a Blek le Rat book coming out, published by Thames & Hudson. Should be available in May 2008.

Enjoy the work of the ‘Godfather of stencil art’.

In Spectator, Christopher Ondaatje reviews David Robson’s book on Sri Lankan born architect Geoffrey Bawa (with photographs by Richard Powers, Thames & Hudson, 224pp, £39.95)

Although there have been many architectural books featuring the works of Geoffrey Bawa, the Sri Lankan born architect, most notably a first monograph authored by David Robson a year before Bawa died in 2003, a second book, Beyond Bawa, also by Robson, is a biographical and artistic revelation. What is surprising and different about this new edition is that it reveals an extraordinary biographical account of the talented younger son of a wealthy Moslem lawyer and his Dutch burgher wife; and also illustrates the legacy of perhaps one of the most influential architects in south Asia in the 20th century, by discussing how his inspiration has continued in a number of younger architects who worked with Bawa in his practice and who have continued his creative force today known globally as ‘tropical modernism’. Examples of his genius can be found in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Bali, as well as in resorts and residences throughout Asia.

more

Je viens de tomber sur un diaporama dans L’Express.fr Styles qui relate la sortie d’un nouvel ouvrage sur la mode… Dessins de mode des créateurs de Laird Borrelli (directrice éditoriale du site américain Style.com et historienne de la mode) nous ouvre les portes de l’intimité de nos plus grands créateurs en nous exposant 280 de leurs croquis les plus célèbres. Une vraie merveille pour les yeux ! Que ce soit de crayon, de feutre ou de plume, ils arrivent à traduire sur le papier des émotions dignes d’un défilé…

De Christian Lacroix, Sonia Rykiel ou Yves Saint Laurent aux nouveaux visionnaires comme Jens Laugensen, Rodarte ou Roksanda Ilincic, tous les grands noms de la mode ont accepté de confier leurs dessins à Laird Borrelli. Des styles différents, des illustrations étonnantes (de la BD ou du manga, du noir et blanc ou de la couleur, de l’encre ou du virtuel) mais une passion de la mode indescriptible et les premières ébauches d’une collection.

Pas besoin d’en dire des tonnes, je vous laisse aller voir le petit aperçu de L’Express.fr Styles et moi je file à la Fnac…

Dessins de mode des créateurs, de Laird Borrelli, traduit en français par Lydie Echasseriaud. Editions Thames & Hudson. 192 pages.