Events Posted Mar 14, 2023

Join us Sunday, March 26th for a Discussion and Book Signing with Isis Aquarian, Jodi Wille and Charlie KItchings for "The Source Family Scrapbook!"

We are delighted to invite you to attend a very special Sunday afternoon presentation with authors Isis Aquarian, Jodi Wille, and Charlie Kitchings to celebrate the publication of Family: The Source Family Scrapbook. Panel moderated by FAMILY associate editor Steffie Nelson.
 
For the event the four will host an exhibition of rare photographs and printed materials from the Source Family Archive housed at the UC Santa Barbara Library's Special Research Collections, engage in a discussion about the Family and the book, and sign copies afterwards. If you cannot attend but would like to purchase a signed copy of this, or one of the other Source Family items we will be offering in limited supply, please place your order here, or call 310-458-1499.
 
Isis Aquarian is the Source Family’s archivist. As one of Father’s fourteen wives, she photographed and filmed Father and the Source Family, recorded audio, maintained scrapbooks, and helped manage the Family business. She is co-founder and Vice-President of the Source Foundation, and was an associate producer of The Source Family documentary. Isis has published her award-winning memoir, The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod: Ya Ho Wa 13 and The Source Family," and produced the record “Isis: The Crone." She has supervised the release of other Source Family music, created a Source Family comic book, and her own tee shirt line.
 
Jodi Wille is a filmmaker and curator known for her work exploring American subcultures. She is director of the feature documentary The Source Family, and the Co-Founder and editor of book publishing companies Otherworld, Process Media, and Dilettante Press. She has edited and published a number of award-winning books including The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWha 13, and The Source Family; Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts!; Pure Country: The Leon Kagarise Archives 1961-1971; and Starstruck: Photographs from a Fan, by amateur photographer Gary Lee Boas. She has curated numerous museum and gallery exhibitions related to her book and film projects in Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, Portland, and London.
 
Charlie Kitchings is an independent curator and art advisor. He founded AMBACH & RICE in 2009 and organized over fifty exhibits during the gallery’s six-year tenure in Seattle and Los Angeles. He is currently a partner in record manufacturing company SunPress Vinyl.
 

 

None Posted Feb 15, 2023

Book of the day > NO TRESPASSING PLANNED PARENTHOOD CALENDAR

NO TRESPASSING is a limited edition calendar created by Ariella Starkman and Jen Brill for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York to help fund resources for those seeking compassionate, nonjudgmental abortion services.

A 2023 monthly calendar for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York. Featuring the work of: Fumiko Imano, Maggie Lee, Catherine Opie, Farah Al Qasimi, Louise Bourgeois, Janiva Ellis, Ana Mendieta, Jenny Holzer, Lauren Greenfield, LaKela Brown, Faith Ringgold, Marilyn Minter.

Foreword by Paloma Elsesser.
 
Edition of 500
 
100% of proceeds to be donated to Planned Parenthood and its services.
 
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York is building a world where all communities have full access to innovative, high-quality, affordable, evidence-based sexual and reproductive health services, which will always include abortion, whenever, wherever, and however they are needed.
 
They are the leading provider, educator, and advocate of sexual and reproductive health care in New York State. PPGNY offers a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services at its 23 health centers across 65% of New York State. As a voice for reproductive freedom, PPGNY supports legislation and policies that ensure all New Yorkers, and beyond, have access to the full range of reproductive health services and education. 
 
In direct response to the Supreme Court’s dangerous decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, proceeds from the sale of this calendar will be directed to meet the demand for increased abortion availability at PPGNY, who strive to decrease appointment wait times and maximize resources to care for New Yorkers as well as people traveling to NY from other states to seek compassionate, nonjudgmental abortion services.  
 
Book of the Day Posted Feb 04, 2023

Book of the day > Stephen Shore Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape

Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape presents the latest body of work from Stephen Shore: a series of photographs shot by drone from 2020 onwards, which reveal in arresting detail the interplay of natural and man-made landscapes in Montana, North Carolina, New York, and beyond.
In this new body of work, Shore revisits the original ambitions of the renowned 1975 exhibition ‘New Topographics’, using a new aerial viewpoint to consider afresh the concerns of the movement – the objective, the commonplace, and the relationship of the natural and man-made in the American landscape – reflecting on how these might be applied in the twenty-first century.
As much as exploring the formal possibilities of the aerial photograph, Topographies displays a glorious dedication to detail and surprise, in which the slightest bend of a river or turn of a shadow uncovers the textures and colours of America’s urban and suburban landscapes, all investigated with Shore’s signature rigour.
Purchase here
Events Posted Jan 24, 2023

Black Mass + LAXART at Arcana

We are excited to announce an in person discussion between LAXART's director Hamza Walker and Yusuf Hassan and Kwamé Sorrell of BlackMass Publishing. This Saturday, January 28th, 4pm.

Founded by Yusuf Hassan in 2019, BlackMass Publishing is a New York-based collective and independent press. At once a structure of coherent units and a collection of disjointed parts, BlackMass invokes an aggregate of Blackness, of matter in resistance. Combining archival photographs and found print material with poetry and jazz music, BlackMass grapples with the blurred lines and idiosyncrasies which make up the collective improvisation of African diasporic culture.

BlackMass have publications included in the permanent book collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, RAW Material Company, Dakar, Center for Book Arts, New York, The Thomas J. Watson Library, New York, The Whitney Museum Library, New York, The Houghton Library, Cambridge, The Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center, New York, The New York Public Library, and The Evergreen State College, Washington.

Their discussion will be held at Arcana Books in Culver City on January 28th at 4pm. We look forward to seeing you there!

Miscellany Posted Jan 20, 2023

Please help Gusmano

If you are able to, please consider a contribution to help our friend Gusmano Cesaretti. Gusmano is a fabulous artist and could use your support in any amount to help him keep his studio.
 
You can read more about Gusmano and make a contribution on go fund me here.
 
Thank you.

 

 

Events Posted Jan 04, 2023

Book SIgning & DIscussion 1/14/22 > LAWRENCE WESCHLER + STEPHEN BERKMAN: A TROVE OF ZOHARS

 
We are delighted to invite you to a book signing for Lawrence Weschler's brand new Hat & Beard publication, A Trove of Zohars. For the event Mr. Weschler will be joined by photographer and early-photographic process historian Stephen Berkman for a discussion about the book and the shrouded-in-mystery Zohar Studios. If you cannot attend but would like to purchase a signed copy, please place your order here, or call 310-458-1499.
 
"So Lawrence Weschler was minding his own business, as all his stories begin, when he got a call from Gravity Goldberg (her real name!) who introduced herself as the Director of Public Programs and Visitor Experience at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. She was calling, she told him, to apprise him of an upcoming show - an inaugural exhibition, that is, of a recently uncovered trove of work by Shimmel Zohar, a mid-19th-century Lithuanian immigrant photographer. A contemporary of Mathew Brady, Zohar had chronicled the Jewish immigrant community of the Lower East Side of 1860s - 1870s Manhattan in unparalleled detail, compiling a complete inventory of professions and types. Or not. There was, she suggested, some slippage in the whole story, and they were trying to find someone who might be willing to investigate things, and they were wondering, might he be interested?
Thus begins an antic tale of investigative perplex and vertiginous inquiry, as Weschler tracks down Stephen Berkman, the wet-collodion devotee who claims to have discovered the trove in question, but it’s a long and loopy story. And indeed, Weschler’s account evolves into the fourth volume of his ongoing “Chronicles of Slippage” series, doing for the early history of photography and the long heritance of Judaism what the series’ first volume, the Pulitzer-shortlisted Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, once did for the history of museums and the phenomenology of marvel.
And that’s just the half of it, for the main text sprouts a veritable delirium of digressive footnotes (taking up more than half the book), constituting what may be the closest we are going to ever get by way of memoir from this confounding and beloved writer."
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Book of the Day Posted Dec 19, 2022

Book of the Day > Todd Hido 2023 Calendar from Deadbeat Club

Twelve months of Hido! The year ahead looks full of promise and beauty and peaceful moments.

Our pals at the Deadbeat Club called upon "friend and photo-lord Todd Hido to bring immaculate vibes for the annual Deadbeat Club Calendar.

Here's to less noise, more joys in 2023 and beyond. Happy new year, everyone... we did it!
 
Book of the Day Posted Dec 15, 2022

Book of the day > Bruce Weber - All-American XXII: That Towering Feeling

"Consider the sky on a new moon night; gaze out at horizon by the sea as the waves roll in. That “towering feeling” explored in this year’s edition of Bruce Weber’s All-American journal can be experienced in such moments—when the immensity and inscrutability of human emotion intersect with the practical vagaries of life on this fragile earth.

Time is a central presence in this 22nd edition. A rich, poignant photo essay by Weber lies at the heart of the issue—a reunion with Aungelique Patton-James, a poet he met while working in Detroit sixteen years ago. Equal part reminisce and reverie, this story presents a new, unexpected take on central themes of Weber’s oeuvre: the tension between fantasy and reality, the importance of family, the seduction of romance and the joys of juxtaposition—in this case Aungelique with the beguiling actress and model Tina Kunakey from Biarritz.

The hopeful pursuit of Dr. Denise Herzing, a marine biologist who has spent the better part of her career trying to crack the language to dolphins, is beautifully documented by the photographer Tanya Burnett. An intimate view of Dr. Paul Farmer, the celebrated co-founder of Partners in Health and tireless advocate for the poor, is shared by the photographer and writer Behna Gardner, who traveled with him extensively. And Bruce Weber shares a deeply personal tribute to Alden Powers, a young musician and student who he photographed for many years.

All-American XXII: That Towering Feeling includes lyrics by Geoff Stephens and Les Reed and a suite of poems by William Stafford."
 
Book of the Day Posted Dec 14, 2022

Book of the day > Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen

"Part cookbook. Part manifesto. Created with big Bronx energy, Black Power Kitchen combines 75 mostly plant-based, layered-with-flavor recipes with immersive storytelling, diverse voices, and striking images and photographs that celebrate Black food and Black culture, and inspire larger conversations about race, history, food inequality, and how eating well can be a pathway to personal freedom and self-empowerment.
 
Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen is the first book from the Bronx-based culinary collective, and it does for the cookbook what Ghetto Gastro has been doing for the food world in general—disrupt, expand, reinvent, and stamp it with their unique point of view. Ghetto Gastro sits at the intersection of food, music, fashion, visual arts, and social activism. They’ve partnered with Nike and Beats by Dre, designed cookware sold through Williams-Sonoma and Target, and won a Future of Gastronomy award from the World’s 50 Best.
 
Now they bring their multidisciplinary approach to a cookbook, with nourishing recipes that are layered with waves of crunch, heat, flavor, and umami. They are born of the authors’ cultural heritage and travels—from riffs on family dishes like Strong Back Stew and memories of Uptown with Red Velvet Cake to neighborhood icons like Triboro Tres Leches and Chopped Stease (their take on the classic bodega chopped cheese) to recipes redolent of the African diaspora like Banana Leaf Fish and King Jaffe Jollof. All made with a sense of swag. "
 
Book of the Day Posted Dec 12, 2022

Book of the day > Tove Jansson by Paul Gravett

This book provides fresh insight into and a deep appreciation of the life and art of Tove Jansson, one of the most original, influential, and perennially enjoyed illustrators of the twentieth century. In this volume Paul Gravett examines Jansson’s highly successful Moomin books, as well as her interpretations of classics such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
 
Born in Helsinki among Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority, Jansson was brought up with a love for making art and stories in a supportive, artistic family. Her first illustrated tales were published when she was fourteen years old and she went on to draw humorous and political cartoons as well as striking front covers for the satirical magazine Garm, in response to events in World War II. As she developed from art student to painter and muralist, and from bohemian to lesbian, she also created her Moomin world, which appeared in her first children’s book in 1945 and then in newspaper strips. Beyond this imaginative achievement, Jansson also wrote many novels, documented here along with personal commentaries from her own writings.
 
A title in The Illustrators series, which celebrates illustration as an art form, Tove Jansson offers a visually rich view into the life and work of this much-loved artist and writer.

Purchase here.
 

 

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