Creative Closeup

Andy Warhol: Ho, Ho, Ho!

Enrique — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:22:50 +0000

Fashion lovers rejoice! These swank little books showcase Andy’ Warhol’s inimitable pictures and pronouncements on shoes and style — and make ideal gifts for serious shoppers everywhere.

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes collects a closetful of high heels, loafers, mules, boots, and sandals, including iconic images from Warhol’s Pop heyday as well as rarely seen early advertising illustrations. Accompanied throughout by witty quotes — “I decided that being a shoe salesman is a really sexy job”, for example — these forty drawings, watercolors, and prints demonstrate Warhol’s special talent for transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Style, Style, Style offers a cavalcade of forty striking fashion images — slinky dresses, whimsical period costumes, sprightly scarves, ultrachic bijoux, and more, all drawn from Warhol’s archives. Sprinkled throughout with the artist’s droll quips and playful epigrams, this stylish minibook conjures up all the decadent pleasures of a shopping spree — at only a fraction of the cost.

From the Platform: Subway Graffiti, 1983-1989

Enrique — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:18:11 +0000

See the New York City transit system at a time the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has tried hard to forget. In the early ’80s, graffiti writer Paul Cavalieri, who writes CAVS, was drawn to the colorful tags on trains. He started learning train schedules so he could snap works by many writers of the time. This is a compilation of subway graffiti from 1983 to 1989, when the MTA announced that its fleet was entirely graffiti-free. More than 325 color photos capture everything from motion-bombed train interiors riddled with pilot marker tags to epic works covering whole exteriors, top to bottom. Artists tell their tales of adventure throughout and reminisce about working on live third rails, navigating the complex subway system to find their works, and witnessing graffiti’s gradual disappearance from the trains. This book presents a nostalgic look at 1980s New York City and the street artists that gave it soul.

Sculpture In Paper

Enrique — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:18:13 +0000

In addition to instructions for simple papermaking, this heavily illustrated guide covers tools and materials, basic shapes and forms, and various techniques for paper craft, including crumpling, weaving, relief sculpture, papier-mâché, and wearable masks.

Lifestyle Illustration of the 50s

Enrique — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:18:14 +0000

The determinedly forward-looking optimism of postwar Europe and America was nowhere more evidenced than in the magazine art of the 1950s. In cheery scenes of domestic harmony, of strong-jawed men and winsome women, the illustration arts declared that the wartime years of austerity and uncertainty were at an end and a sunnier, more aspirational culture was taking shape. Featuring over 1,000 beautiful and stylistically diverse illustrations, Lifestyle Illustration of the 50s charts the decade’s progression as western economies started to recover and youth culture began to assert itself in the market place. From stylish and urbane young couples in romantic clinches to professional men and women exploring their new-found affluence and economic independence, this book provides expert insight into the evolving styles, fashions, dreams and social mores of the 1950s, through an extensive gallery of rediscovered and restored artwork by some of the decade’s finest illustrators. An informative introduction explores the history of this long overlooked art form and orients its impact within wider social trends. Lifestyle Illustration of the 50s provides a nostalgic trip into a world of midcentury modern living.

You Can Make Paper Sculptures

Enrique — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:18:17 +0000

Cut, fold, slot – and hey presto! It’s a stegosaurus. Follow a few simple steps, and make these stunning paper sculptures – not only a stegosaurus, but an alien, an echidna (spikes and all), a Murray River paddle steamer, an angel, and lots more. Cutouts are provided, instructions are as simple as A, B, C – or 1, 2, 3. Add colour if you like, and then go on to design your own! Use at home or school, great for presents, decorations, projects.

Urban Art Photography

Enrique — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:18:19 +0000

Urban centres such as Barcelona, Paris and Berlin are places whose landscapes
are characterised by anonymously created artwork and signatures that
are inventing new visual codes. This street art is much more than mere graffiti.
In addition to using spray paint, today s enterprising urban artists use stencils,
wheat paste and found objects to manifest their ideas. They work in an interdisciplinary
way and are often creative nomads travelling and working their way
through cities around the world.
Berlin is a particularly strong magnet for international street artists, inviting them
to leave their mark. But the impressions that they leave are inevitably fleeting
as their art falls victim to the city s unrelenting development. Luckily, editor and
street artist JÃƒÂ¼rgen Grosse has worked with Michael Bonk for years to track and
archive Berlin s urban art.
Urban Art Photography presents artwork from Berlin that communicates with its
environment in a subversive way. Successfully capturing this interplay, the book
serves as a permanent documentation and time capsule of these constantly
changing images.
The creative process and constant development of the pieces through interventions
by other street artists are vividly depicted in Urban Art Photography. Their
evolution is presented in this large-sized book as authentically as the transience
of an art form that makes the city its canvas.

The Adventures of Darius and Downey: and other true tales of street art, as told to Ed Zipco

Enrique — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:19:11 +0000

An unparalleled book on street art and artists, the first to be entirely narrative-driven.

Through a series of true stories, this unique book reveals the tight-knit, exciting world of street art. Darius (aka Leon Reid) and Downey (aka Brad Downey) did their first piece together in Brooklyn in 2000—a life-changing experience marking the birth of a partnership that would go on to revolutionize street art.

Ed Zipco, an acute and empathetic commentator on urban graffiti art, relates their most memorable experiences, from their early exploits and brushes with the law to their work internationally in London and Berlin. Along the way, we witness their artistic evolution from conventional graffiti tagging to ambitious street installations that are both wittily entertaining and startlingly subversive.

The introduction is by renowned street artist Swoon, famed for her intricate paper cutouts. 80 color illustrations.

Mann, Abandoned

Enrique — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:19:13 +0000

Photographer Hazel Walsh was the 2010/11 Artist in Residence at the Sayle Gallery, in the Isle of Man. During the 12 month residency Hazel undertook the project ‘Mann, Abandoned’ which focused on photographing various derelict and abandoned structures found around the Isle of Man.

Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Innovation

Enrique — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:19:14 +0000

Industrial Light & Magic is an extensively illustrated oral history of the multiple-Academy-Award®-winning visual-effects company founded by George Lucas in 1975. A behind-the-scenes record of the state-of-the-art innovations that have driven movie-making magic, the book features candid stories from the filmmakers, artists, and technicians who were there, breaking barriers and changing the history of cinema.

Industrial Light & Magic recounts the company’s rapid expansion over three decades and, in particular, the last 16 years, detailing its work on dozens of big-budget films—from optical printing to the digital and computer-generated effects era. Featuring extensive commentary by George Lucas, Dennis Murren, John Knoll, Pablo Helman, Roger Guyett, Ben Snow, Rob Coleman, Lorne Peterson, and many others, these stories and images focus on ILM’s breakthroughs for films from 1995 onward, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Transformers, Iron Man, and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, offering a crash course on the most groundbreaking visual effects being created today.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes

Enrique — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:19:17 +0000

Instilling a poetics of place is a goal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), the famous landscape design firm that has created successful public spaces in some of the country’s most challenging urban sites. In these locations, nature offers not so much an escape from city living as a teasing dialogue with built structures. The whole experience is aimed, as critic Paul Goldberger notes, to make you see everything, city and nature alike, with a striking intensity.”

Richly illustrated and handsomely designed, this is the first publication to explore a wide range of MVVA’s projects, focusing on the firm’s trend toward sites requiring complex technological solutions. Leading critics and historians look at twelve projects, dating from 1992 to the present, and each posing a challengesuch as contamination, isolation, and lengthy public approval proceedings. They explore the process through which the firm researches such issues and how solutions are embedded in the final aesthetics and spatial structure of the sites.

Creative Closeup

Andy Warhol: Ho, Ho, Ho!

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From the Platform: Subway Graffiti, 1983-1989

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Sculpture In Paper

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Lifestyle Illustration of the 50s

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You Can Make Paper Sculptures

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Urban Art Photography

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The Adventures of Darius and Downey: and other true tales of street art, as told to Ed Zipco

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Mann, Abandoned

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Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Innovation

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Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes

Read more about this…