MARK PEARSON | DATE 2/7/2016

Best of 2016: Forthcoming Favorites from Mark Pearson

Mark William Pearson is a lifelong bookseller, sales rep, experimental musician and instrument builder. He sent us his top 10 forthcoming titles during a rare break at his home near a creek in Chapel Hill, NC.

The Photographer’s Cookbook by Aperture/George Eastman House
For some reason, this astounding book project featuring home recipes and pictures from more than 50 famed photographers was shelved for more than 40 years until an intrepid editor stumbled upon it, archived in a long-forgotten box. While it’s worth the price of admission for William Eggleston’s cheese grits casserole alone, this showcase of shutterbug comestibles is a lost treasure.

Taryn Simon: Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies by Hatje Cantz
I’ve always loved Taryn Simon’s cerebral and ribald conceptual projects, but this one may be my favorite: an exhaustive ornithological taxonomy of every single bird to flap its way into all 24 films in the James Bond franchise.

Notes on Glaze: 18 Photographic Investigations by Cabinet Books
Wayne Koestenbaum’s extended-jam photo caption column Legend has been one of my favorite reoccurrences in Cabinet. Now his scattershot cultural mindspray has been conveniently collected in one handsome tome.

Xanti Schawinsky: The Album by JRP|Ringier
Though integral to his theater work at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College (particularly for his Spectodramas, which provided early infrastructure for performance art), Xanti Schawinsky’s 2-D work has rarely been shown. Collected here are his exquisite and energetic assemblages, many seen for the first time.

Erica Baum: The Naked Eye by Crevecoeur / Bureau
Utilizing a simple source—vintage paperback books slightly spread open to reveal shards of image and text—the subtle dynamite of Erica Baum’s photographs conjures a dreamscape of microfiche skittering between frames.

Edmund Clark and Crofton Black: Negative Publicity, Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition by Aperture / Magnum Foundation
An elaborate, spiral-bound indictment comprised of facsimile documents and photographs detailing the silent casualties of the War on Terror. Sobering, infuriating and meticulously produced with a variety of paper stocks and gatefolds.

Ordinary Pictures by the Walker Art Center
For those who believe that the stock image is the elevator music of photography and want to be proven wrong, behold the didactic splendor of Ordinary Pictures. Featuring work by nearly 40 conceptual artists with a gift for consecrating the mundane, this spiral-bound affair is spiritually akin to Robert Heinecken’s Lessons in Posing Subjects. And for your non-diegetic listening pleasure, this gem also includes a flexidisc by sound artist Jack Goldstein.

Duane Hanson by Koenig Books
I can still remember the rapturous jawdrop of witnessing one of Duane Hanson’s rigorously constructed, outlandish-yet-empathetic sculptures for the first time. Featuring archival photos of show openings from the 1970s, insider snaps of the artist at work, unpublished writings and vintage plates of Hanson's best works, this book takes me back there again.

Michaël Borremans: Black Mould by David Zwirner Books
If you find yourself in the mood to imbathe in a chimerical, mythic doom zone, grab your darkest cloak and dive in to this.

Not Theories but Revelations: The Art and Science of Abbott Handerson Thayer by Williams College Museum of Art
Abbott Handerson Thayer, revered painter of child angels, was also obsessed with the concept of camouflage. He even developed the theoretical basis for the "dazzle" camouflage emblazoned on various battleships during both World Wars. Collected here are Thayer’s rarely-seen studies of disruptive patterning in nature in the form of glorious oil paintings depicting animals melding into the landscape.