Rule Without Exception/Only Exceptions.

Rule Without Exception/Only Exceptions. By Lewis Baltz. Texts by various contributors, book design by Connie Wilson and Lewis Baltz. Steidl, 2012. 184pp., illustrated throughout, 23,8x33,3cm. Two volumes. Images from here.

Book description:

"This progressive book object combines two volumes and covers the sweep and depth of Lewis Baltz’s influential oeuvre.

'Rule Without Exception' is a re-issue of Baltz’s award-winning mid-career retrospective book which accompanied a travelling exhibition of the same name in 1991. The book surveys Baltz’s work from 'The Prototype Works' of 1967 through to 'Sites of Technology' of 1991, showing the range of his images of industrialised landscapes and technological sites. Each section of the book is accompanied by installation views as well as texts by distinguished writers, some newly commissioned for this edition.

'Only Exceptions' is a new book chronicling Baltz’s work - now usually site-generated commissioned works - from 1992 to the present and is published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Kunstmuseum, Bonn. 'Only Exceptions' includes Baltz’s work in California, Leipzig’s 'Black Triangle', Reggio Emilia, Groningen, Rome, Venice, and two projects with Jean Nouvel in France and Italy."

The Loves of the Poets.

The Loves of the Poets. By Joseph Mills. Nazraeli Press, 2005. 32 pp., illustrated throughout, 9x12". Images from here.

Book description:

" 'The Loves of the Poets', featuring the artist’s [Joseph Mills] beautifully raw, disturbingly seductive collages, is a work of art unto itself.

Bound in rich felt, with gold leaf stamping and gilded edges, this gorgeous artist’s book features twenty-six collages that seem to be on the verge of complete revelation but time and again leave the viewer on a suspended note.

The success of these images, in the words of [Anne Wilkes] Tucker, 'lies in the fact that they are anchored in reality just enough so that we are on the edge between surreality and reality'.

Beautifully reproduced with antique paper backgrounds and a rich double varnish, 'The Loves of the Poets' brings the marriage of artist and book to a new level."

Cette Montagne C'est Moi.

Cette Montagne C'est Moi. By Witho Worms, texts by Xavier Canonne and Witho Worms (Dutch, French, German, English and Polish). FW:, 2012. 176 pp., illustrated throughout, 22x24cm. Images from here.

Book description:

" 'Cette montagne c’est moi' is about me. Translated literally, it means ‘This mountain that’s me’.

It was initially an association of image and meaning that led to the subject matter.

The carbon in coal is the same carbon referred to in carbon printing. Carbon printing is a photographic printing process that is excellently suited for reproducing dark tones.

For this project I developed a variation on the carbon printing process, a photographic printing technique from the 19th century.

I took a bit of coal from every mountain I photographed. I then ground this coal into a pigment that I used to make photographic paper. I used this paper to make a print of a mountain with the coal originating from that mountain.

In other words, the object of the photo, the mountain, has become one with the subject of the photo, the print itself.' - Witho Worms "

Man Ray, African Art & the Modernist Lens.

Man Ray, African Art & the Modernist Lens. By Wendy A. Grossman. International Arts & Artists, 2009. 200 pp., illustrated throughout, 9x11,75".

Book description:

"This groundbreaking analysis spotlights a select group of Man Ray’s photographs within the context of modernist photographic history and the "discovery" of African art by the early twentieth-century avant-garde.

Featuring more than seventy photographs by Man Ray - some never before reproduced - alongside many rarely seen photographs of African art by his European and American contemporaries, 'Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens' uncovers a virtually unknown chapter in both the inventive activities of this celebrated artist and in this overlooked facet of photographic history.

Meticulously researched and compellingly presented, Wendy A. Grossman raises thought-provoking questions about the role photographs played in shaping perceptions of African art and, in turn, how such images led to distinctive modernist viewpoints across racial and geographic boundaries.

Particularly notable is the treatment of the African pieces both as integral components of the modernist history to which they contributed and, as elucidated by original scholarship by African art experts, as objects with their own independent cultural histories. Revealing a more complex engagement with African art by Man Ray and his contemporaries than has been previously known, Grossman provides a rich and nuanced study that makes an important addition to our understanding of critical issues in modernism that continue to influence the way we see African art today."

Coexistence.

Coexistence. By Stephen Gill. Nobody Books and Centre National de L’Audiovisuel, 2012. 152 pp., illustrated throughout, 21,5x28cm. 6 different marbled covers, 250 signed copies of each edition, 1500 copies total edition. Special edition of 100 copies, signed and numbered. Images from here.

I like Stephen Gill's work very much (link, link, link, link, link, link).


Book description:

"Stephen Gill’s latest book 'Coexistence' came about as a commission to photograph a pond by an abandoned blast furnace in the town of Dudelange, Luxembourg.

Drawing on a childhood interest in pond life, which would now be thriving after the furnace had cooled and thinking about microscopic worlds within worlds and the parallels with human societies he determined to bring these two worlds together despite the vast difference in scale.

He shot the miniscule pond life through a microscope and the residents of Dudelange with an underwater camera dipped in a bucket of water from the pond.

Using the practices of immersion and re-shooting from his 'Hackney Flowers' and 'Outside In' projects combined with the style of his aquatic themed 'Coming up for Air' 'Coexistence' is hallucinatory and strangely beautiful body of work that at times looks more like painting than photography.


Books are central to Stephen’s practice and 'Coexistence' is his most lavish yet. Beautifully designed by his long term collaborator Melanie Meus, it resembles a nineteenth century natural history book and is published in hardback with a leather bound spine with a double gatefold inside. With his usual attention to detail Stephen spent four days learning how to make marbled paper for the cover.

There are six different marbled paper covers of the standard edition and each Special Edition has a cover made of a unique marbled paper hand made by Stephen."


'Coexistence' is exhibited at Centre National de L’Audiovisuel Luxembourg until 10 February 2013.

Light Years. Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964-1977.

Light Years. Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964-1977. Edited by Matthew S. Witkovsky, with essays by Mark Godfrey, Robin Kelsey, Anne Rorimer, Allen Ruppersberg, Giuliano Sergio, Joshua Shannon and Matthew S. Witkovsky. Yale University Press, 2011. 264 pp., illustrated throughout, 9,5x12". Images from here.

Book description:

"Photography played a critical role in conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s, as artists turned to photography as both medium and subject matter.

'Light Years' offers the first major survey of the key artists of this period who used photography to new and inventive ends.

Whereas some employed photographic images to create slide projections, photographic canvases, and artists' books, others integrated them into sculptural assemblages and multimedia installations.


This book highlights the work of acclaimed international artists such as Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, Giuseppe Penone, and Ed Ruscha.

Matthew Witkovsky's [Ellen and Richard Sando Chair and Curator of photography at The Art Institute of Chicago] essay provides the larger context for photography within conceptual art, a theme that is further elaborated in texts by Mark Godfrey, Anne Rorimer, and Joshua Shannon.

An essay by Robin Kelsey focuses on the pioneering work of John Baldessari in which he explored the element of chance, and an essay by Giuliano Sergio illuminates the lesser-known work of Arte Povera, an Italian movement that sought to dismantle established conventions in both the making and presentation of art."