these just in … 26 June, 2008
The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo’s Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican
by Benjamin Blech & Roy Doliner
Hardcover $26.95 - 10%
Five hundred years ago Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world—the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity’s chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.
The Sistine Secrets tells the fascinating story of how Michelangelo embedded messages of brotherhood, tolerance, and freethinking in his painting to encourage “fellow travelers” to challenge the repressive Roman Catholic Church of his time.
“Driven by the truths he had come to recognize during his years of study in private nontraditional schooling in Florence, truths rooted in his involvement with Judaic texts as well as Kabbalistic training that conflicted with approved Christian doctrine, Michelangelo needed to find a way to let viewers discern what he truly believed. He could not allow the Church to forever silence his soul. And what the Church would not permit him to communicate openly, he ingeniously found a way to convey to those diligent enough to learn his secret language.”—from the Preface
Blech and Doliner reveal what Michelangelo meant in the angelic representations that brilliantly mocked his papal patron, how he managed to sneak unorthodox heresies into his ostensibly pious portrayals, and how he was able to fulfill his lifelong ambition to bridge the wisdom of science with the strictures of faith. The Sistine Secrets unearths secrets that have remained hidden in plain sight for centuries.
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order
by Joan Wickersham
Hardcover $25.00 - 10%
When you kill yourself, you kill every memory everyone has of you. You’re saying “I’m gone and you can’t even be sure who it is that’s gone, because you never knew me.†Sixteen years ago, Joan Wickersham’s father shot himself in the head. The father she loved would never have killed himself, and yet he had. His death made a mystery of his entire life. Using an index—that most formal and orderly of structures—Wickersham explores this chaotic and incomprehensible reality. Every bit of family history—marriage, parents, business failures—and every encounter with friends, doctors, and other survivors exposes another facet of elusive truth. Dark, funny, sad, and gripping, at once a philosophical and deeply personal exploration, The Suicide Index is, finally, a daughter’s anguished, loving elegy to her father.
Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China
by Jen Lin-Liu
Hardcover $24.00 - 10%
As a freelance journalist and food writer living in Beijing, Jen Lin-Liu already had a ringside seat for China’s exploding food scene. When she decided to enroll in a local cooking school—held in an unheated classroom with nary a measuring cup in sight—she jumped into the ring herself. In Serve the People, Lin-Liu gives a memorable and mouthwatering cook’s tour of today’s China as she progresses from cooking student to noodle-stall and dumpling-house apprentice to intern at a chic Shanghai restaurant. The characters she meets along the way include poor young men and women streaming in from the provinces in search of a “rice bowl†(living wage), a burgeoning urban middle class hungry for luxury after decades of turmoil and privation, and the mentors who take her in hand in the kitchen and beyond. Together they present an unforgettable slice of contemporary China in the full swing of social and economic transformation.
Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection
by Mario S. De Pillis & Christian Goodwillie
Hardcover $75.00 - 10%
Struck by the beauty of every visible object in a Shaker kitchen they chanced to visit in 1923, young Edward Deming Andrews and his wife, Faith Young Andrews, embarked on a collection that became the passion of their lives. During the following decades, at a time when the art and artifacts of the Shakers were considered “low†art and unworthy of collecting or exhibiting, the Andrewses energetically collected objects, studied sources, and eventually mounted exhibits and published books on Shaker culture.
This beautiful book is the first to document their unparalleled collection, presenting some 600 photographs, most never before published. In addition, the book brings to light the extraordinary story of the Andrewses’ collecting and scholarship, their relationships with members of the United Society of Believers (commonly called Shakers) and with important New York City art-world figures of the 1930s, as well as their contributions toward the birth of the field of Shaker Studies. More than passionate collectors, Edward and Faith Andrews were intent on saving a distinct culture, and their accomplishment was to preserve for future generations the most comprehensive body of knowledge ever assembled about the Shakers.
Graphic Thought Facility
by Zoe Ryan
Paperback $16.95
London-based Graphic Thought Facility (GTF) has emerged as one of today’s most progressive and versatile design firms. Established in 1990, it has a reputation for a non-conformist approach to graphic design. The firm’s originality results from its combination of a handmade aesthetic, knowledge of digital technology, and an interest in new materials and production methods.
This handsomely designed and produced catalogue includes photographs and essays that highlight GTF’s most notable projects and commissions, which range from graphic identity to marketing materials to exhibition and catalogue design. Whether providing innovative design materials for the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London,Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the Tate Museum, the furniture and interior design store Habitat, or designers such as Ron Arad and Tord Boontje, GTF encourages us to appreciate the visual richness of the world around us.
Jeff Koons
edited by Francesco Bonami
Hardcover $45.00 - 10%
In 1975, a young art student named Jeff Koons moved to Chicago, where he studied at the School of the Art Institute; worked as a studio assistant to his hero, painter Ed Paschke, for $1 an hour; and socialized with many of the city’s most talented artists. This handsome book takes a fresh look at the rise and career of Jeff Koons, who is now arguably one of the world’s most famous artists.Koons collaborated extensively on this book, which accompanies the first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. in 16 years and offers a survey of nearly thirty years of his work, beginning with iconic sculptures from 1979 to new paintings completed in 2007. Francesco Bonami reconsiders his career, making intriguing connections to the work of Andy Warhol, A. A. Milne, Marcel Duchamp, and Gustave Courbet, among others. This is the first publication to explore a little-known but highly influential period in the artist’s career, his time in Chicago in the 1970s. It also provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to Koons’ work for new audiences and short texts about each of his series and many major works.
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