Books
As I sometimes — or quite a lot of the time — find myself disposed to avoid the demands of work and household, my favorite dodge is perusing much read books for those “juicy” parts that I’ve doted over for years. Samuel Beckett’s Murphy is just the right book for this kind of time wasting: It’s a no
Books
Sometimes a gallery’s books are more interesting than the artwork they regularly exhibit, and you can peruse their best artists and exhibitions from the confines of a well-constructed catalogue.
Books
It’s to be expected that when America’s greatest living poet publishes a translation of one of the greatest and — to borrow a phrase from the titles of old forgotten anthologies — best-loved poets of world modernity, readers would take notice. And they have, so maybe I should think twice before addi
Books
In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault usefully reminds us that “[t]he frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, ot
Books
“I’m sure the people of Iraq are looking forward to your poem about Franco and his economy,” Isabel tells the main character, Adam Gordon. Since the death of the self, the author and painting, the desire for significance has led to a daily slew of preposterous claims and downright silly statements.
Books
Boulder bookstore owner David Bolduc said of artist and graphic designer Tina Collen’s “artobiography,” titled Storm of the i (2009) and published by Art Review Press, “I've been in the book business for thirty years and have seen a lot of books. But I've never seen anything like Storm of the i.” I
News
After the New York Mayor's office assured the world via Twitter that the Occupy Wall Street library was "safely stored," it has become apparent that the statement was a half-truth at best.
Books
Equally wild and soft, the book art of UK artist Louisa Boyd is an animated discourse on the distress and destruction of analog media. She breaks and reconstructs books into sculpture, wondering loudly with the rest of us, what’s going on with the world of print? In a book lover’s nightmares, librar
Books
Poetry can be intimidating and difficult to “get.” It can evoke the same feelings many of us have toward contemporary art — we don’t always understand it, and it can make us feel shut out, like outsiders to an in-joke. Poetry as one of human nature’s more obtuse endeavors, can have the same effect.
Books
Jai Arun Ravine’s The Spiderboi Files: Volume 1 is a careful, intentional work of book art with themes that reverberate delicately through the book’s physical structure. Its content rattles a cage of constructs: commercialism, California and gender identity.
Books
Now in its sixth year, the New York Art Book Fair, which takes place at MoMA's hipper sister in Queens, PS1, from September 30 to October 2, features more than 200 exhibitors from Ireland to South Korea. Presented by Printed Matter, the fair is the world’s premier event for artists’ books, contempor
Books
The latest monograph of the Contemporary Art Series covers the provocative Polish artist and trickster Pawel Althamer (b. 1967), discussing in minute detail his “sculptures, installations, and pubic interventions.” Without a doubt, Phaidon’s Pawel Althamer is the most substantial art book I’ve laid