steidl publishing november 2008 (13 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Used - Like New. For four years, Robert Weingarten photographed Amish communities in Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin. In 80 photographs, Another America captures the beauty and simplicity of a way of religious life that has been sustained for more than three centuries. Descendants of the followers of Jakob Ammann, a Swiss Mennonite bishop of the seventeenth century, the Amish came to America in the early eighteenth century in search of religious freedom. The Amish have their roots in the Mennonite community. Both were part of the early Anabaptist movement in Europe, which took place at the time of the Reformation. The Anabaptists believed that only adults who had confessed their faith should be baptized, and that they should remain separate from the larger society. They uphold basic Bible doctrines, believe strictly in following Christ's example of nonviolence and stress humility, family and community. Many early Anabaptists were put to death as heretics by both Catholics and Protestants, and others fled to the mountains of Switzerland and southern Germany. Here began the Amish tradition of farming and holding worship services in homes rather than churches. In 80 photographs, Another America captures the beauty and simplicity of a way of religious life that has been sustained for more than three centuries. Very nice clean, tight copy free of any marks.

Hardcover. Condition: Used - Very Good. The Lebanese Civil War dominated life in Beirut from 1975 until 1990. When it ended, a massive rebuilding began, with the goal of making its Central District the finest city center in the Middle East. In 2002 Larry E. McPherson was commissioned to document this transition. Between 2002 and 2004 he spent a total of six months there, and his understated, visually affectionate photographs convey the natural beauty of Beirut's position between the Mediterranean and Lebanon's snow covered mountains. Beirut City Center encompasses archeological sites made into public areas, gardens, perfectly restored Ottoman and French architecture, and elegantly integrated new construction, and conveys both the practical and symbolic importance of building again. The Lebanese Civil War dominated life in Beirut from 1975 until 1990. When it ended, a massive rebuilding began, with the goal of making its Central District the finest city center in the Middle East. In 2002 Larry E. McPherson was commissioned to document this transition. light dirt stains on bottom corner of pages, book in excellent condition.

Trade Paperback. Condition: Used - Good. Japanese contemporary artists have mined some distinctive territory in the past decade or two--from the Superflat movement, to the referencing of traditional art objects like scrolls or contemporary pop phenomena like manga. Within these conventions, certain themes continually surface--nature in conflict with the manmade world, costuming and the search for personal identity and the child as cultural icon. Heavy Light identifies these themes as they are evidenced in recent Japanese photo-based art, and examines how they are reshaping Japanese tradition. This volume is published in conjunction with the major Spring 2008 exhibition at New York's International Center of Photography, which includes a diverse selection of artists: Makoto Aida, Naoya Hatakeyama, Naoki Kajitani, Hiroh Kikai, Midori Komatsubara, Yukio Nakagawa, Asako Narahashi, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Tomoko Sawada, Risaku Suzuki, Miwa Yanagi, Kenji Yanobe and Masayuki Yoshinaga. Also featured in this volume are extensive interviews with the artists, offering accounts of their working methods and their thoughts on the influence of contemporary art on Japanese culture during the last several decades of rapid change. In addition, art historian Linda Nochlin and writer Akiko Otake provide invaluable essays. Japanese contemporary artists have mined some distinctive territory in the past decade or two--from the Superflat movement, to the referencing of traditional art objects like scrolls or contemporary pop phenomena like manga. Book has minor shelf wear.

Trade Paperback. Condition: Used - Very Good. In this collection of 120 black-and-white photographs, Roni Horn takes us on a journey through a locker room in Reykjavik, Iceland. With minimal movement between the camera and subject in succeeding frames, and through the use of a slow-shutter technique, this finely crafted body of work provokes the viewer to contemplate the subtleties of each image. A blur behind a portal suggests that someone else is in the locker room with the viewer. Room numbers, open and closed doors, and intersecting hallways give clues to the surroundings, and as we turn each page of the book, we sense the subtle shifting of time and space in photographs that reflect a sculptor's attention to the details of surfaces, repetition and form. In this collection of 120 black-and-white photographs, Roni Horn takes us on a journey through a locker room in Reykjavik, Iceland. Slight scratching/scuffing on cover. Book has minor shelf wear.

Hardcover. Condition: Used - Very Good. A childhood encounter with a crow at a zoo led to a lifetime fascination with avian life for the American artist Jim Dine. This encounter with the bird was perceived by the young Dine with a mixture of fear, fascination and a deeper understanding of his unconscious world, and from it grew a mythic personal symbolism, which he explores in Birds, a series of remarkable black-and-white photographs. Here, an everyday, unspectacular bird might appear to the beholder as a character of mythology, as a jester at a Medieval court, or as a strange messenger from a world behind the scenes. These are rich, intimate, darkly detailed images imbued with symbolism and meaning. They are also beautiful and compelling, particularly as published in this spectacular volume, which, with 36 images printed using a technique called heliogravure, and with a Japanese binding, is a truly beautiful object in itself, and reveals a new aspect of Dine's work. A childhood encounter with a crow at a zoo led to a lifetime fascination with avian life for the American artist Jim Dine. This encounter with the bird was perceived by the young Dine with a mixture of fear, fascination and a deeper understanding of his unconscious world, and from it grew a mythic personal symbolism, which he explores in Birds, a series of remarkable black-and-white photographs. BEAUTIFUL COPY!!! Very nice clean, tight copy free of any marks. wrapped in complimentary Brodart dust jacket protector.

Hardcover. Condition: New. 'Mark is good-natured. He finds the best in most things. To explain more would be too much. These are just pictures that Mark can do.' Photographer David Bailey is famously a bit more mercurial than the assistant of his title--a massive social force in the 1960s world of Twiggy, Catherine Deneuve, the Beatles and the Who, and a model for the lead in Blow Up. But while he is a master in his medium, he readily accepts that photography is technologically-driven and democratic, and that many family compositions have been taken millions of times, varying only in the identities of their subjects. Bailey also takes such snapshots, images with unusual ease and freedom for him but unusual weight for their ilk. In compiling them, he observed that they seem so easy that even Mark, his assistant, could make them, and the quip became his title. Which is not to say that he doesn't value these photos very highly: Asked to name his best picture in a recent interview, he answered, 'Snaps of my kids.' 'Mark is good-natured. He finds the best in most things. To explain more would be too much. These are just pictures that Mark can do.' Photographer David Bailey is famously a bit more mercurial than the assistant of his title--a massive social force in the 1960s world of Twiggy, Catherine Deneuve, the Beatles and the Who, and a model for the lead in Blow Up.

Hardcover. Condition: Used - Like New. Essential for ephemera aficionados, fans of Surrealism and proto-Surrealism and for anyone prone to spending more time in a museum's shop than in its galleries, The Stamp of Fantasy vindicates the postcard as a medium with a history as rich as the mediums it helped to foster, such as photomontage and mail art. In presenting the most fantastical postcard images from the early twentieth century, this book may be the opposite and complement to Martin Parr's famous Boring Postcards series, stuffed as it is with disembodied heads, hybrid humans, erotic imagery and drawn modification. If the great French filmmaker Georges Melies had produced postcards (instead of films on a postcard scale), they might resemble these miniature works by diverse hands, selected from the esteemed collections of Peter Weiss and Gerard Levy for the touring exhibition of the same name. The book tracks the overlap between so-called 'fantasy' postcards and the avant-garde art of the 1920s and 1930s, principally Dadaism and Surrealism. Paul Eluard, Andre Breton and Salvador Dali were enthusiastic collectors of fantasy postcards and Hannah Hoch, Herbert Bayer, Man Ray and many others used them as material in their work. Marcel Duchamp's famed 1919 detournement of a 'Mona Lisa' postcard, 'L.H.O.O.Q,' may be one of this book's guiding precedents, at least for drawing attention to the postcard per se--but plenty of anonymous artists contribute equally irreverent and inventive tweakings, as well as more hallucinatory amendments. The Stamp of Fantasy is a wonderful celebration of the small gesture, amateur inventiveness, folk Surrealism and art's most democratic form of reproduction. The Stamp of Fantasy is a wonderful celebration of the small gesture, amateur inventiveness, folk Surrealism and art's most democratic form of reproduction. Wrapped in Brodart dust jacket protector. Back dj is slightly wrinkled on top corner.

Hardcover. Condition: Used - Very Good. By demonstrating what can come into one's line of sight (or camera lens) through the simple act of looking with curiosity at the world, expecting not to see the usual but rather the unusual, the juxtaposed, the bright, the surreal, the exaggerated and the quixotic, Keel teaches the viewer to see with fresh eyes. His view over the harsh red illumination of the dashboard lights toward the liberating end of the tunnel is both disturbing and strangely hopeful. In photos full of movement and lightness, liveliness and spontaneity, irony and generous humor, perspectives surprise and reflections hint at a secret, puzzle-filled world that exists both in front of and behind the everyday one. The absurdity of the ordinary, whose beauty is all too often overlooked by saturated senses, is made visible in the vivid, highly colorful photographs of Philipp Keel. Minor shelf wear, mostly at edges. Other wise great shape, very clean. Nice tight binding. Pages are flat, neat, and clean.

Hardcover. Condition: New. Once described by critic Jerry Saltz as 'orgies of narrative--Nevada's celebrated Chicken Ranch brothel crossed with Wal-Mart and Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau,' the libidinously sprawling installations of Jason Rhoades (1965-2006) met cultural overproduction head-on, with a savage fervor comparable only to that of Rhoades' onetime teacher at UCLA, Paul McCarthy. His work encompassed excess and contradiction: 'To juggle the impossible was always an issue throughout my work--to take three objects, like a rubber ball, a chain saw and a live African elephant, and try to juggle,' he declared. Rhoades' last project, Black Pussy Soiree Cabaret Macrame, was a series of private social events involving massive sculptural installations in which people walked through a large Los Angeles warehouse filled with Ikea-style shelves containing thousands of 'dream catchers,' hookahs, camel saddles, chrome trolleys and cowboy hats. Neon signs spelled out various words for female genitalia, and guests were invited to contribute to Rhoades' ongoing cross-cultural compendium of these euphemisms. Evolving to fit each location, this installation, which publicly debuted at Hauser &Wirth in London in 2005, traveled to New York's David Zwirner gallery in November of 2007. Its catalogue was conceived by and designed with the artist prior to his untimely death, and includes a foreword by Kevin West, West Coast Editor of W magazine, and photographs by Joshua White and Alexia Pilat. Evolving to fit each location, this installation, which publicly debuted at Hauser & Wirth in London in 2005, traveled to New York's David Zwirner gallery in November of 2007. Its catalogue was conceived by and designed with the artist prior to his untimely death, and includes a foreword by Kevin West, West Coast Editor of W magazine, and photographs by Joshua White and Alexia Pilat. BEAUTIFUL COPY!!! Still sealed.

Hardcover. Condition: Used - Very Good. By way of follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut monograph Sleeping by the Mississippi, Alec Soth turns his eye to another iconic body of water, Niagara Falls. And as with his photographs of the Mississippi, these images are less about natural wonder than human desire. 'I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers,' says Soth, 'the relentless thunder of the Falls just calls for big passion.' The subject may be hot, but the pictures are quiet, the rigorously composed and richly detailed products of a large-format 8x10 camera. Working over the course of two years on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls, Soth edited the results of his labors down to a tight and surprising album. He depicts newlyweds and naked lovers, motel parking lots, pawnshop wedding rings and love letters from the subjects he photographed. We read about teenage crushes, workplace affairs, heartbreak and suicide. Oscar Wilde wrote, 'The sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.' Niagara brings viewers both the passion and the disappointment--a remarkable portrayal of modern love and its aftermath. By way of follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut monograph Sleeping by the Mississippi, Alec Soth turns his eye to another iconic body of water, Niagara Falls. Very nice clean, tight copy free of any marks. No dj as issued.

Hardcover. Condition: New. The Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings of Ed Ruscha is a six-volume series of books co-published by Steidl and Gagosian Gallery. This is the second volume, which contains entries on 178 paintings completed between 1971 and 1982--from the artist's crisis at the onset of the 70s, when he 'quits painting pictures,' to his first major museum retrospective, which opened in March 1982 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The catalogue includes a comprehensive exhibition history, bibliography and biographical chronology, as well as a preface by the editor Robert Dean, an essay by UCLA film historian Peter Wollen examining Ruscha's use of color as it relates to his use of language, and an essay by the late Reyner Banham. The Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings of Ed Ruscha is a six-volume series of books co-published by Steidl and Gagosian Gallery. This is the second volume, which contains entries on 178 paintings completed between 1971 and 1982.