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One of Japan’s leading contemporary artists, Takashi Murakami (b. 1962) is known for a wide-ranging practice that encompasses not only fine art but fashion, consumer products, curation, and entertainment. Founder of the Superflat movement, Murakami makes art that is larger than life, boldly colored, and buoyant, with a Pop sensibility that draws inspiration from anime and(...)
Contemporary Art Monographs
September 2023
Murakami: Unfamiliar people- swelling of monsterized human ego
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One of Japan’s leading contemporary artists, Takashi Murakami (b. 1962) is known for a wide-ranging practice that encompasses not only fine art but fashion, consumer products, curation, and entertainment. Founder of the Superflat movement, Murakami makes art that is larger than life, boldly colored, and buoyant, with a Pop sensibility that draws inspiration from anime and manga. But beyond the happy flowers and kawaii characters that have defined Murakami’s career lurk darker manifestations: the sharp-toothed, multi-eyed monsters that have increasingly become the artist’s vehicle for expressing the effects of rampant consumerism, human fallibility, and the perils of life in the digital fast lane. This book explores these themes in works from the last decade, presenting a disquieting vision of monsterized beings born in an era of unprecedented environmental, political, and social turmoil. Conversations with Murakami and essays by Laura W. Allen, Hiroko Ikegami, and Masako Shiba deconstruct what monsters mean to the artist and reflect on new directions in Murakami’s sculpture and the genesis of his recent NFT projects.
Contemporary Art Monographs
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Louis de Carmontelle was an eighteenth-century French draftsman, painter, and garden designer. Beginning in 1783 he painted a series of panoramas on translucent paper that became a popular source of entertainment at royal court gatherings. These rolled-up transparencies (rouleaux transparents)were cranked through a backlit viewing box, and the "moving pictures" were(...)
Carmontelle's Landscape Transparencies : Cinema of the Enlightenment
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Louis de Carmontelle was an eighteenth-century French draftsman, painter, and garden designer. Beginning in 1783 he painted a series of panoramas on translucent paper that became a popular source of entertainment at royal court gatherings. These rolled-up transparencies (rouleaux transparents)were cranked through a backlit viewing box, and the "moving pictures" were accompanied by live storytelling that gave spectators the experience of journeying through beautiful landscapes. Presented chronologically, the transparencies show the evolution of eighteenth-century fashions and customs. The author re-creates the original viewing experience by leading the reader through a series of panoramic scenes, and, in the process, offers a lively analysis of eighteenth-century social life. Drawn from both museum and private collections, the charming illustrations include gatefolds showing the full extent of the J. Paul Getty Museum's Figures Walking in a Parkland as well as many exquisite details of elegant outdoor gatherings and verdant parklands. The book presents all of Carmontelle's extant transparencies, some of which survive only in fragments and a number of which have never been published.
Gardens
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In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the John Hinde Studio, based in Dublin, produced a series of postcards to be sold at Butlin's holiday camps throughout the British Isles. Famous for their “hi-de-hi” catchphrase, redcoat hosts and bargain packages with all entertainment included, Butlin's annually hosted over a million holidaying Britons throughout the 1970s. It was the(...)
Our true intention is all for your delight : the John Hinde Butlin's photographs
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In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the John Hinde Studio, based in Dublin, produced a series of postcards to be sold at Butlin's holiday camps throughout the British Isles. Famous for their “hi-de-hi” catchphrase, redcoat hosts and bargain packages with all entertainment included, Butlin's annually hosted over a million holidaying Britons throughout the 1970s. It was the challenging job of two German (Elmar Ludwig and Edmund Nägele) and one British photographer (David Noble) to execute the photographs to Hinde's rigorous formula and standards. With innovative use of color and elaborate staging (the trademarks of a John Hinde postcard), each photograph is painstakingly produced, with often large casts of real holidaymakers acting their allocated roles in these narrative tableaux of the Butlin's quiet lounges, ballrooms and Beachcomber bars. Shot with large-format cameras and lit like a film set, these photographs were an extraordinary undertaking in their production values, and helped John Hinde become one of the most successful postcard publishers in the world. Most of the John Hinde Butlin's photographs have only ever been published as postcards.
Photography Collections
books
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The spectacularly successful transformation of Times Square has become a model for other cities. From its beginning as Longacre Square, Times Square’s commercialism, signage, cultural diversity, and social tolerance have been deeply embedded in New York City’s psyche. Its symbolic role guaranteed that any plan for its renewal would push the hot buttons of public(...)
Times Square Roulette : remaking the city icon
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The spectacularly successful transformation of Times Square has become a model for other cities. From its beginning as Longacre Square, Times Square’s commercialism, signage, cultural diversity, and social tolerance have been deeply embedded in New York City’s psyche. Its symbolic role guaranteed that any plan for its renewal would push the hot buttons of public controversy: free speech, property-taking through eminent domain, development density, tax subsidy, and historic preservation. In "Times Square Roulette", Lynne Sagalyn debunks the myth of an overnight urban miracle performed by Disney and Mayor Giuliani, to tell the far more complex and commanding tale of a twenty-year process of public controversy, nonstop litigation, and interminable delay. She tells how the troubled execution of the original redevelopment plan provided a rare opportunity to rescript it. And timing was all: the mid-1990s saw rising international corporate interest in the city as a mecca for mass-market entertainment and synergistic merchandising. Sagalyn details the complex relationship between planning and politics and the role of market forces in shaping Times Square’s redevelopment opportunities. She shows how policy was wedded to deal making and how persistent individuals and groups forged both.
books
October 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Urban Theory
The smart house
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Divided into three sections, "The Smart House" illustrates how technology is changing our homes. The book looks at three areas: Smart Technology, which examines five aspects of technology and how it's being integrated throughout the house: lighting design and window treatments; audio and video entertainment; voice and data management; security and access; and(...)
Residential Architecture
November 2003, New York
The smart house
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Divided into three sections, "The Smart House" illustrates how technology is changing our homes. The book looks at three areas: Smart Technology, which examines five aspects of technology and how it's being integrated throughout the house: lighting design and window treatments; audio and video entertainment; voice and data management; security and access; and environmental controls and energy management. Smart Materials, which shows new building materials such as titanium, electronic glass that can become transparent or opaque at the flick of a switch, polycarbonate materials, laser-perforated metals, all of which are changing the way homes are built and the ways in which we use and perceive spaces within these structures. Smart Design looks at more extravagant innovations such as swimming pools cantilevered in mid-air, windows that recreate digital views at night, interior spaces whose functions are transformed through architectural slight of hand and computer aided design, all of which point to new ways of thinking about how we live and how we use space in this increasingly space-challenged world. Case studies of ten recently constructed homes are detailed to illustrate each aspect of this technology and to show the full potential technology affords modern home design.
Residential Architecture
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This book compiles Frank Day's multivalent series of photographs of Bangkok's battered public phone booths. Seen as if magnets for the detritus of daily life in a metropolis, Day's intimate yet subtly epic images register traces of the demands that govern our urban existence: postings for job adverts, signs of commercial pleasure, and listings for entertainment(...)
Frank Hallam Day, Call waiting: Bangkok phone booths
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This book compiles Frank Day's multivalent series of photographs of Bangkok's battered public phone booths. Seen as if magnets for the detritus of daily life in a metropolis, Day's intimate yet subtly epic images register traces of the demands that govern our urban existence: postings for job adverts, signs of commercial pleasure, and listings for entertainment spectacles, or social advancement opportunities. Many of the markings in the booths are tags by graffiti artists and also messages left by street protestors during the recent years of Thailand's political meltdown. Call Waiting is not a sociological document of the type that maps the rich contrasts of a contemporary Asian city. Rather, Day's formalism cultivates intense moods and surprising resonances, touched by a noir sensibility of abandonment, neglect and mystery. (Brian Curtin) Frank Hallam Day lives in Washington DC. He won the 2012 Leica Oskar Barnack Prize for the series Nocturnal (published by Kehrer 2012), among other awards. His work has been widely exhibited and is in the collections of Berlinische Galerie und Landesmuseum Berlin, Baltimore Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, and others.
Photography monographs
Cabinet 26 : magic
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"Secular magic," in the words of historian Simon During, is a category designed to differentiate the activity of the modern stage magician from the classical alchemist or occultist. Yet an appraisal of these non-supernatural forms of magical entertainment nevertheless provides the chance to trace the complex network of social and cultural forms to which secular magic owes(...)
Cabinet 26 : magic
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"Secular magic," in the words of historian Simon During, is a category designed to differentiate the activity of the modern stage magician from the classical alchemist or occultist. Yet an appraisal of these non-supernatural forms of magical entertainment nevertheless provides the chance to trace the complex network of social and cultural forms to which secular magic owes a debt - from pioneering theatrical devices, novel approaches to stagecraft, and the harnessing of scientific principles in the service of trickery to modes of discourse and performance that draw heavily upon traditional religious, folkloric or shamanic prototypes. Guest-edited by London artist and critic Jonathan Allen, Cabinet 26 features Allen on magic and warfare; Alexander Nagel on the history of images in magic; Yvonne Chireau on the legendary conjuror "Black Herman" and the connections between African-American stage magic and African religious traditions; and conversations between Simon During and scholar and author Marina Warner, and between artist Sally O'Reilly and Ian Saville, the "Socialist Magician." Also : Amelie Hastie on eating at the movies; George Prochnik on Freud's porcupine; Brian Dillon on Albert Bacon's gesture guide for orators; Tim Davis on the color Olive and; a new Implicasphere insert focused on Stripes.
Magazines
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Natural, renewable, reusable, and aesthetically pleasing, wood is the consummate building material. Thanks to incredible advances in both application and sustainability, it is being used across the world to create new and surprising styles. This global survey features exquisite photography that captures a wide range of twenty-first century construction in residential,(...)
Building with wood: the new timber architecture
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Natural, renewable, reusable, and aesthetically pleasing, wood is the consummate building material. Thanks to incredible advances in both application and sustainability, it is being used across the world to create new and surprising styles. This global survey features exquisite photography that captures a wide range of twenty-first century construction in residential, public, cultural, educational, commercial, and entertainment-related spaces. From the Mount Fuji World Heritage Center in Shizuoka, Japan and the Eystur Town Hall in the Faroe Islands to the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, each building is featured in double-page spreads with colour photographs that allow readers to appreciate timber’s intrinsic qualities against a variety of backgrounds, scales, and typologies. Plans and building specifications are accompanied by the latest developments in research and design. Eco-friendly and robust, timber’s applications are almost unlimited, extending to the tallest skyscrapers, and to every livable corner of our planet. This volume offers encouraging proof that architects around the world are responding to the climate crisis in ways that not only preserve the earth, but also provide pleasing environments in which to live, work, and play.
Timber Construction
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Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is one of the design field's most respected figures. She is legendary for her decades of scholarship and activism and is known as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. This long-awaited book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades: "Where are the Black designers?" along with related questions that are(...)
Here: Where the black designers are
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Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is one of the design field's most respected figures. She is legendary for her decades of scholarship and activism and is known as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. This long-awaited book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades: "Where are the Black designers?" along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: Where did they originate? Where have they been? Why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons? Holmes-Miller traces her development as a designer and leader, beginning with her own family and its rich multiethnic history. She narrates her experiences as a design student at Rhode Island School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Pratt, leading up to her oft-cited Pratt thesis examining barriers to success for Black designers. Holmes-Miller describes the work of her eponymous studio for noted clients that included NASA, Time Inc., and the nascent Black Entertainment Television, as well as the story of her later critiques of the industry in the design press, most notably in Print magazine. Miller also recounts the parallel history of collective efforts by fellow scholars and advocates over the past fifty years to identify and celebrate Black designers.
Design Theory
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Welcome to Blubberland--a world of quadruple-garaged mansions, vast malls, gated communities, stretch limos, and posh resorts. Blubberland is a place, but it is also a state of mind: we expect to be happy (trophy house, SUV in the driveway, home entertainment system, pension fund, cosmetic surgery), but in fact we've grown increasingly bloated, bored, and miserable. In(...)
Blubberland: the dangers of happiness
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Welcome to Blubberland--a world of quadruple-garaged mansions, vast malls, gated communities, stretch limos, and posh resorts. Blubberland is a place, but it is also a state of mind: we expect to be happy (trophy house, SUV in the driveway, home entertainment system, pension fund, cosmetic surgery), but in fact we've grown increasingly bloated, bored, and miserable. In Blubberland, award-winning critic Elizabeth Farrelly looks at our "superfluous superfluity," our huge eco-footprint, and asks why we find it so hard to abandon habits we know to be destructive. Why can't we build human-scale cities, design meaningful public spaces, eat reasonable meals, and stop assaulting nature? Farrelly, trained as an architect, begins this story with architecture, urban sprawl, and housing, but she does not end there. She also looks at "affluenza," childhood asthma, diabetes, addiction, beauty, ugliness, narcissism, climate change, mega-churches, big box retailers, sustainability, depression, anorexia, and the links that collect all of these issues under the same roof--the roof, as it were, of the McMansion. As "big" becomes more and more pervasive, and success is seen in increasingly measurable and material terms, the goal of happiness jeopardizes our survival. Blubberland is a smart, thoughtful, and stylish argument for turning things around.
Urban Theory