Peter Shire: Teapot in Tempest, On the Spot!

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48 pages, 16.5 x 23.5 cm
Edition of 700
Published by OMMU, 2015

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These days Peter Shire is rightly heralded for his association with the Memphis Design Group – which has received a significant upswing in popularity over the last couple of years – as well as his instantly recognizable Echo Park Pottery items. In this volume the art book publisher OMMU has chosen to highlight his drawing output from 1980-2000, which displays the same playful approach to form found in his sculptures and furniture.

—Available from OMMU and Family

Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)

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Written by John Cage
Hardcover, 176 pages
6 x 8.5 inches
Published by Siglio Press, 2015

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"It is a mosaic of ideas, statements, words, and stories. It is also a diary. For each day, I determined by chance operations how many parts of the mosaic I would write and how many words there would be in each."

As the quote above states, John Cage authored his version of a daily diary over 16 years – complete with intertwined observations, obsessions and jokes – in the same way he composed much of his music. One of the 20th century's most visionary and enduring avant-gardists he was a strong and vocal proponent of operations of chance, from his use of the I Ching throughout his life, right down to his aleatoric compositions. Co-edited by Joe Biel and Richard Kraft, Diary is brimming with non-standard text treatments and is a thought-provoking assessment of Cage's methods of composition, making it a beautiful and intriguing work of art in its own right.

—Available from Siglio Press

Seth and Sheila Stayed Behind

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Hardcover, 40 pages
29 x 21.5 cm
Edited by Jeff Khonsary
Designed by The Future
Published by New Documents, 2015

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Seth Fluker's latest project is a collaboration with author, and fellow Toronto native, Sheila Heti. The pairing of Seth's photographs with Sheila’s abstract narrative about longing and transition, creates a balanced and interesting mix throughout the 40-page publication, which was recently launched at Art Metropole. Seth also produced a window installation for the event, featuring the same wintery landscapes captured in this unique and beautiful book.

—Available from Art Metropole and New Documents

Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia

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Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403
October 24, 2015 – February 28, 2016

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“This Walker-organized exhibition, assembled with the assistance of the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, examines the intersections of art, architecture, and design with the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. A time of great upheaval, this period witnessed a variety of radical experiments that challenged societal and professional expectations, overturned traditional hierarchies, explored new media and materials, and formed alternative communities and new ways of living and working together. During this key moment, many artists, architects, and designers individually and collectively began a search for a new kind of utopia, whether technological, ecological, or political, and with it offered a critique of the existing society.

Presenting a broad range of art forms and artifacts of the era, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia features experimental furniture, alternative living structures, immersive and participatory media environments, alternative publishing and ephemera, and experimental film. Bringing into dramatic relief the limits of Western society’s progress, the exhibition explores one of the most vibrant and inventive periods of the not-too-distant past, one that still resonates within culture today.”

—Walker Art Center

Gosha Rubchinskiy: Youth Hotel

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Softcover, 118 Pages
21 x 27.5cm
Edition of 500
Published by Idea Books

Words

Idea Books and Gosha Rubchinskiy first partnered in 2014 when they published Crimea / Kids to coincide with a talk and film screening at the ICA in London. This fall, the two have come together for a third time to publish Rubchinskiy's latest work, Youth Hotel, a 118-page softcover monograph presenting the photographer's perspective on the cultural climate in Russia today. The publication will be exclusively released through Idea Books and Dover Street Market, with a signing at the London location on October 15th.

—Idea Books
—Dover Street Market

Intelligence Magazine Issue 01 Launch

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—01. Released today.

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This evening in Vancouver the good people at Haven are set to launch their latest project, Intelligence Magazine. The biannual publication will focus on the brands, artists and designers that strike a chord with the editors. The inaugural issue includes articles about Hiroshi Fujiwara, Kostas Seremetis and Shin Okishima, alongside editorials on Sasquatchfabrix., OAMC and Nepenthes.

—Intelligence Magazine
—Haven

The Collections of Harry Smith: Catalogue Raisonné, Volume I and II

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—01. Paper Airplanes and String Figures.

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I am enraptured by the varied activities of Harry Smith – painting, collecting, filmmaking and musical anthropology – and with his recognition steadily rising over the last decade, it is becoming easier to link these disparate polymathic activities to him. The themes that bind all of these practices together are his interpretation of patterns in culture, and the creation of his own systems of visual and auditory information. When Smith’s work is viewed with these things in mind, it is clear that a specific thread runs through all of the artifacts he laid his hands on. A series of mounted string figures and 251 found paper planes – two of his most storied collections – form the basis of these new photographic volumes, shot by Jason Fulford and published by J&L Books and Anthology Film Archives.

—Available from Artbook

TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks

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—01. 208 pages.

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If you have any interest in skateboarding, you've probably read Quartersnacks. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the hilarious trendsetting internet skateboarding hub. The site provides a truly original viewpoint on a sport that has exploded in popularity and gained mainstream acceptance. Quartersnacks captures the unmistakable energy of the Downtown NYC skate culture with plenty of humour and a healthy dose of self-awareness. QS doesn't only exist online though: they produce a very popular collection of T-shirts, sweats and decks, and have even collaborated with Nike on a shoe. To celebrate their anniversary, Brooklyn’s powerHouse Books is publishing a collection of the best (and worst) from the site alongside new essays, and a look back at the spots, shops and slang that have defined New York skateboarding in the past decade. TF at 1: Ten Years of Quartersnacks is available now for pre-order.

—powerHouse Books