It's a Very, Very, Very Mad World

Erwin Olaf

Published by Aperture.

“Vermeer Noir” might be an apt description of Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf’s disquieting image repertoire. His subjects are posed indoors, immobile, somewhat in reverie and bathed in nearby window light--but not tranquilly so. An atmosphere of sinister but clinical indifference attends both them and their environments, rendering them into beautiful but dislocated mannequins in catalogue-furnished interiors. All sense of belonging to a place is eliminated. Each richly colored and sleekly composed image offers a sly reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell-like iconography and characters, manifesting a nostalgia that both burlesques and celebrates America of the 1950s and 60s. Dramatic emotions are hinted at but left ambiguous; certainly nothing in the models’ surroundings suggests a cause. Here, across three themes of Hope, Grief and Rain, Olaf blends mid-century Modern and Noir in the lens of contemporary fashion. Avocado greens, golden-hued oranges and subtle lilacs brighten and deaden simultaneously, sending an irresolvable tension through his scenarios like an electric current. This tension, strung between the polar effects of zing and muteness, is the line Olaf treads in his pictures. As a whole, the work defines what critic Jonathan Turner usefully describes as “Olaf’s recent fascination with the visual representation of such emotions as loss, loneliness and quiet despair... [He] plays games with the idea of cold reality versus cruel artifice, capturing that precise moment when innocence, hope and joy are lost.” The book comes with a DVD.

PUBLISHER
Aperture

BOOK FORMAT
Clothbound, 10 x 13 in. / 112 pgs / 65 color / DVD (NTSC).

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/1/2008
No longer our product

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PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781597110617 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $75.00

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Maria Pergay: Complete Works 1957-2010

Published by Damiani.
By Suzanne Demisch, Stephane Danant. Text by Adam Lindemann.

Maria Pergay: Complete Works 1957-2010 is the first comprehensive survey of the work of the legendary French furniture designer, whose work has attracted clients and collectors from around the world for decades. Pergay is most renowned for her use of stainless steel, which she began exploring in 1968 with the now iconic Flying Carpet Daybed and the Ring Chair. Since 1957, Pergay has worked with everyone from Pierre Cardin to the Saudi Royal family, designing an extravagant Turtle Sofa for the couturier and the interiors of the Al Hada palace in Riyahd. In the late 1980s and through the 1990s, the designer received important commissions from Russia and continued to pursue her innovative work in stainless steel, combining it with materials such as mother of pearl, lacquer and precious woods to striking effect. Since her major New York exhibition in 2006, Pergay, now 80, has exhibited internationally and has continued to create pieces for major collectors. Compiled with the designer's collaboration, Maria Pergay: Complete Works 1957-2010 covers more than 50 years of creation. As the only authoritative reference catalogue on the designer's work, it presents detailed factual descriptions of more than 300 of Pergay's designs accompanied by contemporary and vintage photographs, many of which have never previously been reproduced.
Maria Pergay was born to Russian parents in Romania in 1930, emigrating to France at the age of seven. Pergay designed her first collection of contemporary silver objects in 1957, opening her own shop on Paris' Place des Vosges in 1960. In 1968, her first group of stainless steel furniture was exhibited at Galerie Maison Jardin and gained her instant success. Pergay has since been sought after by sophisticated collectors for private commissions around the world, including Saudi Arabia and Russia. Since her major New York show in 2006, Pergay, now in her eighties, exhibits internationally, while continuing to create pieces for a growing audience of major collectors.

PUBLISHER
Damiani

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 325 pgs / 300 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 9/30/2011
Active

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: FALL 2011 p. 175   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788862081740 TRADE
List Price: $70.00 CAD $92.50

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

Future Retro

Drawings from the Great Age of American Automobiles

Published by MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Essay by Frederic A. Sharf. Afterword by Richard Arbib.

Now in a hardcover edition, this book of enchanting vintage drawings showcases the beauty and ingenuity of American automobile design in the landmark period from the 1940s to the 1960s. The work ranges from rough, revealing preliminary sketches to carefully drafted, full-color illustrations, which were the presentation drawings auto makers used to showcase concepts, present new design ideals and act as selling tools. Many of these images have never before been published, and each offers a rare glimpse into the thinking of premier Detroit automakers. Includes an informative text on auto styling, the demands and expectations of the major manufacturers, and the ways in which airplanes, rockets, emerging technologies, and popular media influenced postwar car design. Just in time for Father's Day.

PUBLISHER
MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 10.5 x 8 in. / 88 pgs / 50 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/1/2006
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2006 p. 50   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780878466900 TRADE
List Price: $27.50 CAD $37.50 GBP £24.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Modern Swedish Design

Three Founding Texts

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Edited by Lucy Creagh, Helena Kåberg, Barbara Miller Lane. Text by Lucy Creagh, Kenneth Frampton, Barbara Miller Lane, Helena Kåberg.

Crucial generative writings exposing the intellectual background of modern Swedish design

PUBLISHER
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 7.25 x 10.5 in. / 320 pgs / 18 color / 50 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/1/2008
Active

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2008 p. 110   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780870707223 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CAD $47.50

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Text by Juliet Kinchin, Aidan O'Connor.

A look at the transformation of the kitchen in the 20th century from modernism to the present, from fitted kitchens to single implements

PUBLISHER
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8 x 10 in. / 88 pgs / 75 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2011
Active

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2011 p. 175   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780870708084 TRADE
List Price: $24.95 CAD $33.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Fashion Independent: The Original Style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor

Published by Phoenix Art Museum.
Edited by Dennita Sewell.

A celebration of Ann Bonfoey Taylor’s extraordinary wardrobe of couture and custom-designed sporting ensembles

PUBLISHER
Phoenix Art Museum

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 9.5 x 12 in. / 140 pgs / 130 color / 15 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2011
Active

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2011 p. 173   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780984408115 TRADE
List Price: $60.00 CAD $79.00 GBP £53.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Stan Douglas: Midcentury Studio

Published by Ludion.
Edited by Tommy Simoens. Text by Christopher Phillips, Pablo Sigg.

Vancouver photographer and video artist Stan Douglas (born 1960) has been celebrated since the late 1980s for his politically freighted retrievals of obsolete technologies and failed utopias. The emphatically narrative character of his films and photographs has made for comparisons with his Vancouver contemporary Jeff Wall, but Douglas also laces his work with a literary engagement, in references to works by Proust, Beckett and other writers. Midcentury Studio sees Douglas pursue a new direction. It chronicles the burgeoning discipline of press photography in North America during the postwar period, for which Douglas assumes the role of a fictional photographer, creating a series of images hypothetically produced between 1945-1951. Douglas constructed a “mid-century studio” using authentic equipment as well as actors to produce carefully staged, black-and-white photographs that painstakingly emulate the period's obsession with crime scenes, dance, gambling and technology. This volume juxtaposes actual photographs from the era with Douglas' superb photo-fictions.

PUBLISHER
Ludion

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 8.75 x 10.25 in. / 116 pgs / 13 bw / 46 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/31/2011
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: FALL 2011 p. 83   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789055448791 TRADE
List Price: $40.00 CAD $54.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Magnum Photographers on Film Sets

Published by Silvana Editoriale.
Edited by Alberto Barbera. Introduction by Andréa Holzherr.

Over 60 years since the legendary cooperative photographic agency began, the Magnum photographers have borne witness to some of the most important moments in cultural history, recording the making of many of history's classic films. Magnum Photographers on Film Sets takes readers behind the scenes of cinematic masterpieces including Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (with W. Eugene Smith), Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (with Elliott Erwitt), Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (with Dennis Stock), Orson Welles' The Trial (with Nicolas Tikhomiroff), John Huston's Moby Dick (with Erich Lessing), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Suddenly, Last Summer(with Burt Glinn), Andrzej Zulawski's L'important c'est d'aimer(with Jean Gaumy), Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (with Bruce Davidson) and Volker Schlondorff's Death of a Salesman (with Inge Morath). The publication features both classic and rarely seen photos of Hollywood's finest such as Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Dustin Hoffman, Buster Keaton, Klaus Kinski, John Malkovich, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Anthony Perkins, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, Natalie Wood and many more. Magnum Photographers on Film Sets reveals an unusual side to the activities of the agency's photographers, and reminds us of their ubiquity in postwar culture.

PUBLISHER

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9 x 11 in. / 144 pgs / 10 color / 100 bw / DVD.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 10/31/2011
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2011 p. 54   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788836620012 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CAD $60.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Mies and Modern Living

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Edited by Helmut Reuter, Birgit Schulte.

In 1929 Barcelona was host to the World Arts Fair, an international architecture and design exposition attended by members of the Spanish royalty and many senior European government officials. It was an occasion for cultural grandstanding, an opportunity for countries to parade their native talent. So when the German government approached Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) to design a pavilion, he was left in no doubt as to their expectations--and he met them, erecting an ultra-modern creation in glass, steel and four types of marble. Once he had accomplished this, Mies then set about designing furniture for his building--something none of his competitors appear to have thought of. Thus was born the iconic Barcelona chair, an ingenious blend of clean Modernist steel tubing and comfort-appeal cushioning.
Gathering the proceedings of a 2007 symposium on van der Rohe, this publication takes the Barcelona chair as a starting point to address his progressive ideas on interior space and continuities between architecture and furniture design. Experts trace the highlights of Mies' career and flesh out a context for his innovations in the ferment of 1920s and 1930s Berlin. Also included is a series of previously unpublished photographs of Mies' work.
Author of the proto-Minimalist aphorism, "less is more," Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is not only one of the twentieth century's greatest architects, but the creator of numerous milestones in the history of design.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Hardback, 9.75 x 11.25 in. / 288 pgs / 250 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/1/2009
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2008 p. 175   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775722216 TRADE
List Price: $75.00 CAD $90.00

AVAILABILITY
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Arnold Scaasi: American Couturier

Published by MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Text by Pamela A. Parmal.

Barbra Streisand, Natalie Wood, Arlene Francis, Diahann Carroll, Joan Rivers, Mamie Eisenhower, Barbara Bush, Louise Nevelson... What these women have in common is that all were dressed by Scaasi. From his meteoric rise on Seventh Avenue in the late 1950s through his heyday in the boom decade of the 1980s, Arnold Scaasi has remained one of the most distinctive and successful designers in American fashion. With his signature combination of elegance, flamboyance, surprising colors and fabrics, and finely honed craftsmanship, Scaasi is both a bold American original and a couturier in the grand European tradition. Arnold Scaasi: American Couturier presents the best of Scaasi's fashions in a handsomely packaged, fluidly organized volume. Alongside sumptuous portraits of more than three dozen outfits, the book features numerous period photographs; sketches, notes and clippings from Scaasi's personal archives, most of them never before published; and interviews with Scaasi's famous clients, such as Joan Rivers, Mary Tyler Moore and Diahann Carroll, conducted specifically for this volume. A feast for fashion watchers and design aficionados alike, American Couturier contains all the glamour and thrill that for decades have been synonymous with the Scaasi label.

Arnold Scaasi (born 1931) apprenticed at the House of Paquin in Paris, before moving to New York to work with Charles James. In 1956 he began a ready-to-wear line; in 1968, he caught the eye of a worldwide audience when Barbra Streisand wore his overblouse and pants ensemble to collect her Academy Award for Funny Girl, making Scaasi a household name overnight.

PUBLISHER
MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 8.5 x 11.5 in. / 192 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/30/2010
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2010 p. 173   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780878467587 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CAD $72.50 GBP £50.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available