Fashion Theory

John Bock: Maltreated Frigate

Published by Walther König, Köln.

This sophisticated artist’s book, with custom-cut cover and partially exposed binding, documents John Bock’s 2006 action, "Maltreated Frigate"--the height as well as the culmination of this rising German artist’s performative work. Here, Bock’s vision comes to life in a multitude of color illustrations composed and collaged by the artist. The libretto, printed in its entirety, explodes in linguistic fireworks and tumbles down the printed page, solid in its earthiness and ready to be constructed into a jumble of bizarre and whimsical neologisms--vivid testimony to the artist’s zest for expression. "Maltreated Frigate" was performed as a spectacle in 10 scenes, a collision course of rock opera, Theater of the Absurd, animated sculpture and puppet show. This raucous volume invites the reader to accompany the artist and his protagonists along their tour-de-force, stream-of-consciousness action. It is a violent ride on a machine from hell, steered by an idiosyncratic inner logic.

PUBLISHER
Walther König, Köln

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.25 x 11 in. / 208 pgs / 300 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 1/15/2008
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2008 p. 140   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783865602527 TRADE
List Price: $49.95 CDN $67.50

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Collection agnès b.

Published by JRP|Ringier.
Edited by agnès b. Text by Edouard Glissant, Felix Hoffmann, André Magnin, Hans Ulrich Obrist.

French fashion designer and cultural broker agnès b. has been a major participant in the international art world for many years--especially in New York, where her encouragement and support of numerous artists and institutions has made her a revered philanthropist and friend to many. Now, this book offers a window into agnès b.'s much-admired eye by surveying the highlights of the collection she has amassed over the decades. Initially organized around Modern photography, with a focus on Brassaï, Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt and Weegee, as well as classic pieces by Atget, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, the collection quickly expanded into Contemporary art and photography, as agnès b. acquired works by William Eggleston, Andy Warhol, Larry Clark, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Nan Goldin, and later by Cameron Jamie, Richard Billingham and Martin Parr.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 7.25 x 9.25 in. / 356 pgs / 400 color / 50 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/1/2009
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2009 p. 70   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783905829822 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CDN $65.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Open 18: 2030 War Zone Amsterdam

Imagining the Unimaginable

Published by nai010 publishers.
Edited by Jorinde Seijdel, Liesbeth Melis.

Amsterdam at war in 2030? This terrifying projection into a possible future aims to expand our thinking about tolerance, fear, security, censorship and urban politics. Naming no specific enemy, theorists and artists ask questions and sketch scenarios: what are the implications of warfare in a Western city?

PUBLISHER
nai010 publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 160 pgs / 40 color / 40 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2010
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 109   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789056627102 FLAT40
List Price: $30.00 CDN $40.00

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

Bless: Celebrating 10 years of Themelessness

10 Years of Experimental Fashion, Video Compilation

Published by JRP|Ringier.
Edited by Nicolas Trembley.

This 90-minute DVD features 10 years worth of video documentation of the experimental fashion and object designs by the avant-garde collaborators Bless. Heralded as one of fashion's most innovative teams, the Paris- and Berlin-based duo of Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag refuses to capitalize on one milieu. Constantly investigating the boundaries of style, Bless slips between fashion, beauty, interior design, art and advertising, often collaborating with other brands--like Nike and Adidas to name just a couple. Their work, which straddles the line between object and design, high function and high fashion, is always unique and marked by the recycling and adaptation of unexpected items put to use in totally new ways. The films collected here include a fashion show/dinner party; a show where models walked on an intentionally wobbly stage; a collection laid out as a still life; and 12 others.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
DVD video, NTSC, 5.5 x 7.5 in.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/1/2007
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2007 p. 46   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783905770131 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Pre-Specifics

Some Comparatistic Investigations on Research in Design and Art

Published by JRP|Ringier.
Edited by Vera Bühlmann, Martin Wiedmer. Text by Anthony Dunne, Greg Lynn.

The demand for design competence crosses almost all disciplinary boundaries, making the designers of today particularly ubiquitous in their influence. Pre-Specifics argues that the most promising strategies for the design disciplines of tomorrow can be forecast in the common codes of "virtual relations" shared by material, biological, technological, cognitive and media perspectives. The book features contributions, statements, and conversations with internationally renowned authors such as Greg Lynn, Christopher Peterka, Wolfgang Weingart, Marcel Alexander Niggli, Christian Labonte, Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne, Christian Doelker, Philipp Sarasin, Raymond Guidot, Eric Zimmerman and Manfred Fassler among others. It is designed by Ludovic Balland, and published with the Institute for Research in Art and Design HGK FHNW in Basel.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.5 x 8.75 in. / 390 pgs / 1 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/1/2008
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2008 p. 116   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783905829303 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CDN $40.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Yohji Yamamoto: My Dear Bomb

Published by Ludion.
Coauthored by Ai Mitsuda.

Yohji Yamamoto led the Japanese fashion wave of the 1980s and 1990s into the new millennium. In October 2009, after a series of bad investments, Yamamoto Inc. went bankrupt; by the end of that year the designer had inaugurated a new business and a complete reevaluation of his direction. My Dear Bomb is an outcome of this transition moment. Coauthored with Ai Mitsuda, this carefully and beautifully written autobiography (with biographical interpolations by friends and collaborators) seamlessly combines extended meditations on clothing and life with Yamamoto's memories and anecdotes, in short, concise paragraphs. Throughout its pages, we encounter Yamamoto as a tough realist unburdened by disingenuousness ("I am, in fact, a man who may turn heartless in an instant; I desire only to settle each and every score immediately"); and, of course, as a great designer blessed with unerring instinct for his materials ("how does the cloth want to drape, to sway, to fall? If one keeps these things in mind and looks very carefully, the fabric itself begins to speak"). Illustrated with drawings by Yamamoto, this open-hearted meditation offers a take on the autobiography form as imaginative as the designer's fashion wear.

PUBLISHER
Ludion

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8.75 in. / 192 pgs / 25 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/28/2011
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2011 p. 173   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789055449798 TRADE
List Price: $39.95 CDN $50.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Rei Kawakubo: ReFusing Fashion

Published by Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit.
Introduction by Marsha Miro. Text by Harold Koda, Sylvia Lavin, Judith Thurman, Michael Stone-Richards.

Rei Kawakubo (born 1942) established Comme des Garçons in Tokyo in 1973 and quickly consolidated her stature as one of the three major Japanese designers alongside Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto. Kawakubo's conceptions stem from her background in fine arts and literature rather than from any formal design training. Her fabrication methods, and her collaborations with artists such as the late, great Merce Cunningham, are explored in this survey of her work. ReFusing Fashion presents over 40 key garments, costumes from Kawakubo's Cunningham collaboration, photographs, runway footage and ephemera.

PUBLISHER
Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.5 x 11 in. / 138 pgs / 128 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2011
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2011 p. 28   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780979199141 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $55.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Time Action Vision

Conversations in Cultural Studies, Theory, and Activism

Published by JRP|Ringier.
By Christian Höller. Edited by Anne-Julie Raccoursier.

In Time Action Vision, Christian Höller, of the interdisciplinary Critical Curatorial Cybermedia program at the University of Art and Design in Geneva, conducts 12 conversations on the topics of cultural studies, postcolonialism, globalization, activism and cultural participation. His interlocutors are some of the most respected theoreticians and activists working today: groundbreaking Black Atlantic author Paul Gilroy, Birmingham School founder Stuart Hall (Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Postwar Britain), prolific author Tariq Ali (The Clash of Fundamentalisms), former Weather Underground member (and famed Obama associate) Bill Ayers, Marxist geography scholar David Harvey (Social Justice and the City), London-based art theorist and critic Irit Rogoff, Israeli-born scholar of postcolonialism and transnationalism Ella Shohat, South African postcolonial theorist Achille Mbembe, French filmmaker (and Godard collaborator) Jean-Pierre Gorin, cultural studies scholar Lawrence Grossberg, Australian cultural studies scholar Meaghan Morris and Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8.25 in. / 222 pgs / 20 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/31/2010
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2010 p. 110   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783037641248 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $39.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Joke Robaard: Folders, Suits, Pockets, Files, Stocks

Published by Valiz.
Edited by Brigitte Van der Sande. Essays by Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Roland Barthes, Jean-Luc Godard, Jorinde Seijdel, Robert Bresson, and Adolf Loos.

Artist and photographer Joke Robaard, originally trained in fashion, investigates human configurations (e.g., networks of friends or neighbors). After “directing” individuals into certain positions and patterns in relation to one another, she photographs them, using clothing to illustrate where connections lie and how they constantly shift.

PUBLISHER
Valiz

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8.5 in. / 360 pgs / 32 color / 400 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/2/2004
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2004

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789080818521 TRADE
List Price: $39.95 CDN $53.95

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock