Artbook Image Gallery

For anyone looking to get away from this season's out-of-the-box vampires, ghosts, skeletons and witches, old school DIY Halloween inspiration can be found in Phyllis Galembo's fascinating new photography monograph on the ritual masks, costumes and cultures of Mexico. Worn on festival days that often combine elements of indigenous and Catholic holidays, the masks, costumes and body paint that Galembo documented over several years traveling throughout of the country are all highly symbolic and specific to the characters of each regional festival. Pictured here is a character from Danza de los Santiagueros during the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Chignautla, Puebla, 2015.

In honor of John Giorno (1936–2019)

Featured spreads, both by Giorno Poetry Systems, are reproduced from Information, MoMA’s fiftieth anniversary facsimile edition of the legendary catalog for curator Kynaston McShine’s 1970 survey of conceptual art—the first of its kind at a major institution. Featuring work by pioneering conceptualists such as Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Hanne Darboven, Sol LeWitt, Lucy R. Lippard, Helio Oiticica, Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Smithson, Lawrence Weiner, John Giorno (of Giorno Poetry Systems) and many more, the catalog is one of the most satisfying examples of highbrow low-fi publishing that we’ve ever encountered. If you’re into facsimile editions, this one’s simply excellent. Giorno’s “Dial-a-Poem,” represented by the spreads reproduced here, invited museumgoers to dial the telephone number 956-7032 to hear poems read by John Ashbery, William Burroughs, Bernadette Mayer, Frank O’Hara, Bobby Seale, Anne Waldman and others.

Anne Desmet's 'A Greek Journey' is dazzling in its simplicity

Featured spread, captioned "27/8/18, Skiathos, morning thunder coming. Slightly down the hill from Agios Nikolaos," is reproduced from A Greek Journey, the Royal Academy’s charming sketchbook-like collection of Anne Desmet’s watercolor drawings made during three Greek summers spanning thirty-four years. The first series was made when Desmet was an art student, in 1984, traveling the Northern Sporades and Aegean Sea with a friend, her uncle and her brother. The second was made in 1985, while traveling with her mother and brother on Alonissos. “One balmy night found us, with my uncle and Greek fishermen friends, on the uninhabited island of Pelagos eating barbequed octopus on the seashore beneath the shining Milky Way and a myriad shooting stars,” she writes. The final series was made in 2018, while traveling with her husband and young children. “The cheerily painted wooden caïques were long gone—replaced by sleek tourist yachts and cruisers—the streets were crowded, whitewashed buildings more numerous. But the landscape and its dazzling colors were unchanged and evoked nostalgic memories. Thus the thirteenth anniversary of my wonderful uncle’s death saw us drinking a toast to his memory from a bar in Patitiri harbor, which seemed to bring my Greek journey full circle.”

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