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Philip Guston Now

by | Dec 1, 2020 | 2020 Gift Guide, For the Art Lover

Philip Guston Now
Harry Cooper, Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene,Kate Nesin
$60.00

Philip Guston—perhaps more than any other figure in recent memory—has given contemporary artists permission to break the rules and paint what, and how, they want. His winding career, embrace of “high” and “low” sources, and constant aesthetic reinvention defy easy categorization, and his 1968 figurative turn is by now one of modern art’s most legendary conversion narratives. “I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything—and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?”

And so Guston’s sensitive abstractions gave way to large, cartoonlike canvases populated by lumpy, sometimes tortured figures and mysterious personal symbols in a palette of juicy pinks, acid greens, and cool blues. That Guston continued mining this vein for the rest of his life—despite initial bewilderment from his peers—reinforced his reputation as an artist’s artist and a model of integrity; since his death 50 years ago, he has become hugely influential as contemporary art has followed Guston into its own antic twists and turns.

Published to accompany the first retrospective museum exhibition of Guston’s career in over 15 years, Philip Guston Now includes a lead essay by Harry Cooper surveying Guston’s life and work, and a definitive chronology reflecting many new discoveries. It also highlights the voices of artists of our day who have been inspired by the full range of his work: Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Thematic essays by co-curators Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene and Kate Nesin trace the influences, interests and evolution of this singular force in modern and contemporary art—including several perspectives on the 1960s and ’70s, when Guston gradually abandoned abstraction, returning to the figure and to current history but with a personal voice, by turns comic and apocalyptic, that resonates today more than ever.

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Girl Pictures

by | Dec 1, 2020 | 2020 Gift Guide, For the Feminist, For the Shutterbug

Girl Pictures
Justine Kurland
$50.00

The North American frontier is an enduring symbol of romance, rebellion, escape, and freedom. At the same time, it’s a profoundly masculine myth—cowboys, outlaws, Beat poets. Photographer Justine Kurland reclaimed this space in her now-iconic series of images of teenage girls, taken between 1997 and 2002 on the road in the American wilderness. “I staged the girls as a standing army of teenaged runaways in resistance to patriarchal ideals,” says Kurland. She portrays the girls as fearless and free, tender and fierce. They hunt and explore, braid each other’s hair, and swim in sun-dappled watering holes—paying no mind to the camera (or the viewer). Their world is at once lawless and utopian, a frontier Eden in the wild spaces just outside of suburban infrastructure and ideas. Twenty years on, the series still resonates, published here in its entirety and including newly discovered, unpublished images.

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Ambergris: City of Saints and Madmen; Shriek: An Afterword; Finch

by | Dec 1, 2020 | 2020 Gift Guide, The Voracious Reader

Ambergris: City of Saints and Madmen; Shriek: An Afterword; Finch
Jeff VanderMeer
$35.00

More than twenty years ago, Jeff VanderMeer first introduced the world to the fictional city of Ambergris, a beautiful and sinister sprawling metropolis populated by artists and thieves, composers and murderers, geniuses and madmen. Ambergris bristles with intellectual fervor and religious rivalries; it thrives on cultural upheaval, and its politics are never short on intrigue, conspiracy, and even terror. There are stories within stories, mystery, mayhem, and a dark history that threatens to consume the city itself as the gray caps, the mysterious and deadly mushroom people who once ruled Ambergris and have since been driven underground, now threaten to rise again.

Ultimately, the fate of Ambergris comes to lie in the hands of John Finch, a beleaguered detective with a murder on to solve and too many loyalties for one man to bear. The city is bursting at its seams, seemingly held together only by the tense, fraying tendrils of his investigation.

The Ambergris trilogy is made up of three novels, each of which has become a cult classic in its own right: City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch. It is a marvelous, unparalleled feat of imagination. And yet the books themselves, as celebrated and influential as they have become, have a publishing history as arcane and elaborate as Ambergris itself. Over the years they have slipped in and out of print and have never before been available as a complete trilogy. Until now.

For fans both new and old of the work of Jeff VanderMeer, Ambergris is essential reading. Welcome to Ambergris. We can’t promise you’ll leave untransformed.

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Heros’ Feast

by | Nov 16, 2020 | 2020 Gift Guide, For the Fanboy/Fangirl, For the Gamer, For the Home Chef

Heroes’ Feast (Dungeons & Dragons): The Official D&D Cookbook
Kyle Newman
$35.00

From the D&D experts behind Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana comes a cookbook that invites fantasy lovers to celebrate the unique culinary creations and traditions of their favorite fictional cultures. With this book, you can prepare dishes delicate enough to dine like elves and their drow cousins or hearty enough to feast like a dwarven clan or an orcish horde. All eighty dishes—developed by a professional chef—are delicious, easy to prepare, and composed of wholesome ingredients readily found in our world.

Heroes’ Feast includes recipes for snacking, such as Elven Bread, Iron Rations, savory Hand Pies, and Orc Bacon, as well as hearty vegetarian, meaty, and fish mains, such as Amphail Braised Beef, Hommlet Golden Brown Roasted Turkey, Drow Mushroom Steaks, and Pan-Fried Knucklehead Trout—all which pair perfectly with a side of Otik’s famous fried spiced potatoes. There are also featured desserts and cocktails—such as Heartlands Rose Apple and Blackberry Pie, Trolltide Candied Apples, Evermead, Potion of Restoration, and Goodberry Blend—and everything in between, to satisfy a craving for any adventure.

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The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction

by | Nov 16, 2020 | 2020 Gift Guide, The Voracious Reader

The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction
Neil Gaiman
$40.00

Spanning Gaiman’s career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a captivating collection from one of the world’s most beloved writers.

A brilliant representation of Gaiman’s groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction, this captivating volume includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults —Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane—and nearly fifty of his short stories. 

Impressive in its depth and range, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is both an entryway to Gaiman’s oeuvre and a literary trove Gaiman readers old and new will return to many times over.

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Pearl Jam: Art of Do The Evolution

by | Nov 16, 2020 | 2020 Gift Guide, For the Music Lover

Pearl Jam: Art of Do The Evolution
Joe Pearson
$39.99

See the art that helped create the Grammy Award Nominated music video Do the Evolution by legendary band Pearl Jam, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2017 inductee.

Drawing inspiration from the Grammy Award nominated music video of the same name, Do the Evolution takes fans inside this unforgettable work of art. Directed by visionary comics legend Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and veteran animator Kevin Altieri (Batman: The Animated Series), this achievement in animation told a graphic and dark history of the world in four gripping minutes and is widely considered one of the best music videos of all time.

Now, the full story of the making of this historic video will be told. Lushly illustrated by the video’s striking animation cells with never before seen storyboards and designs from the video, the video’s co-producer, Joe Pearson, will guide readers through the fascinating process of bringing the band’s vision to life in this one-of-a-kind art book.

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