Pearl Jam Visuals

"Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest" -Eddie Vedder

Pearl Jam vs. Ames Bros brings together 229 posters created for Pearl Jam from 1995-2007 by the Ames Bros and Brad Klausen.

The book features over 80 comments on individual posters from all five members of Pearl Jam and running commentary from the poster designers -- offering insight into the inspiration, concepts and process of poster creation.

Details:

Bros, Ames and Brad Klausen. Pearl Jam vs. Ames Bros: 13 Years of Tour Posters. Ames Bros Inc. / Ten Club LLC, 2007. First Edition. Quarto. 263pp. including index. Illustrated throughout in color with reproductions of over 200 posters. Green cloth lettered in gilt with 3 color illustration on front board. As New, issued without dust jacket.

Book available here


Pearl Jam Press Release

Gary Snyder Gets the Lilly

What a great ending to National Poetry Month. Gary Snyder has been awarded the 2008 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

“Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself. His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation.” says Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and chair of the selection committee.

The $100,000 award is one of the most lucrative out there and no one is more deserving. Snyder is a true American hero and has inspired many of us to live a more compassionate life, one in tune to the beauty around and within us.

Gary Snyder at Wikipedia

Snyder's November 2007 article at the Shambhala Sun, Writer's and the War Against Nature

One hour interview with Snyder at NCTV11, the public access station for Nevada City, in 2007.



Photo by Giuseppe Moretti, September 2005. It was taken in the Dolomites while Snyder was in Italy for readings in Rome and Florence.

Pop Surrealism Meets the Book

"Dry All My Tears" 2008

Ink and acrylic on old book
Size: 27/29cm (10.5/7.5in)

Mike Stilkey is on a roll. On the heels of his amazing installation, "When the Animals Rebel" at Rice University this past summer comes "An Occasion of Wonder" his one-man show currently on view at at Milieu Gallerie in Bern, Switzerland.

From the exhibit intro:

Using ink, colored pencil, acrilyc, gouache and lacquer Mike Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. His work is reminiscent of Weimar-era German expressionism and his style has been described by some as capturing features of artists ranging from Edward Gorey to Egon Schiele.

"Man Trips and Falls In His Own Country" 2008
Ink, colored pencil and acrylic on old book
Size: 27/29cm (10.5/7.5in)

I can think of no better afterlife for these books.

Here is a neat video of Stilkey at work.




Previous Book Patrol post, "The Book Painting of Mike Stilkey"

Side image: "The First Mortgage" 2008. Ink, colored pencil and acrylic on old books
Size: 77/29cm (30.25/11.25in)

Blood on Paper : Books in the Hand of Artists

"At a time when the notion of the book is challenged by the advent of the screen and computer, this exhibition aims to show the extraordinary ways in which the book has been treated by leading artists of today and the recent past. Blood on Paper will focus on new and contemporary work, and on books where the artist has been the driving force in conception and design." --from the Introduction to the exhibit.

Most notable artists of the 20th and 21st century have used the book form as a vehicle. No matter what their primary artistic leaning (painting, sculpture, drawing, installation) is the conceptual framework of the book has drawn each into its grasp.

Anselm Kiefer The Secret Life of Plants

Many of the heavyweights of Modern Art are included in the show and the power of the book object shines through in works ranging from the grandeur of Anselm Kiefer's 'Secret Life of Plants' to the minimalist work of Edward Ruscha and Sol Lewitt to the remains of conceptual artist Cai Guo Qiang's piece 'Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks'

Cai Guo Qiang 'Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks'

The exhibit runs through June 28th at the Victoria & Albert Museum and is a must see for those planning to be or living in and around London.

The V&A's worthy online feature on Artists' Books.
Senior curator Dr. Rowan Watson's essay on the exhibit (pdf).
Michael Glovers piece in the London Times, "Blood on Paper: art goes under covers."

Selection of previous Book Patrol posts on Books and Artists :

'The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art'
'Books to Be Desired : Penelope Umbrico's Private Residence'
'The Book That Didn't Get Built'
'Contemporary Artists Tackle Their Favorite Books'

Emory University Unleashes The Danowski Poetry Collection

Emory University kicked off National Poetry Month with a bang. They had three Pulitzer Prize winning poets (Mark Strand, W.D. Snodgrass and Richard Wilbur) headlining a conference titled “A Fine Excess: A Three-Day Celebration of Poetry.”

It was during this event that Emory took the wraps off what some say is the most important collection of English-language poetry in the world.

It was the first public display of the fruits of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library which they acquired in 2004.

The 75,000 rare books, posters, periodicals and recordings that make up the collection is "a nearly complete record of all published English-language poetry in the 20th century."

I repeat "a nearly complete record of all published English-language poetry in the 20th century."

The library arrived in 1,500 boxes and tea crates, and is still being processed!

The exhibition is titled “Democratic Vistas: Exploring the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library,” and features 250 jewels from the collection including:

-A magnificent copy of the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. (1855)

-Anne Sexton's annotated copy of Sylvia Plath's Ariel.

-one of 11 known copies of William Carlos Williams' first book, Poems (1909), which was never reprinted

-a first edition of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock and Other Observations" (1917), inscribed to his close friend Emily Hale;

Danowski has provided a 24-page handwritten introduction to the archive, titled “Anything you perhaps don’t recognize, please Google.”

Emory University Press Release

New York Times piece, Atlanta Sings of Poems Electric, Past and Present, by Brenda Goodman

New York Times slideshow of the exhibit

Barbara Hodgson: Trading in Memories and Other Ways of Seeing Books

In her new book Trading in Memories: Travels Through a Scavenger's Favorite Places Barbara Hodgson takes us on an unforgettable trip around the world. From the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to an ephemera show in Portland, Oregon we get a front row seat as Hodgson works her magic unearthing relics of material cultural. As the collector knows, the pursuit, in many cases, is as fulfilling as the acquisition.

The fruit of travel is in "collecting fragments of people's material lives" says Hodgson in the introduction; in Naples it was tearing posters off the walls, in Portland it was a mugshot, in Fez El-Djedid is was an portable Arabic typewriter, in France she was on the the trail of Pierre Loti (the image above is of an authentic Japanese pagoda Loti had installed in his house).

Hodgson "believes that it is in the streets, bookstores, and markets where the city tantalizingly and coyly unveils its real past and most intimate self" and she places each journey within the perfect amount of historical context that you wish she would keep on going; one more stall, one more city. In a world increasingly bent on the disposable Hodgson proves that value remains in much of what we leave behind. Move over Madonna we have us a new Material Girl!

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An exhibit of Hodgson's work, "Barbara Hodgson: Other Ways of Seeing Books", runs through April at Wessel & Lieberman.

The exhibit features her recently released collaboration with Claudia Cohen The Temperamental Rose and Other Ways of Seeing Color which is undoubtedly one of the most beautifully executed fine press books of 2007.

For the exhibition, Hodgson has created a limited edition keepsake, "The Temperamental Rose: An Experiment with Light". Each copy is hand-colored with a selection of lightfast and fugitive watercolors. It is designed to be exposed to the sun over a period of a year to demonstrate the effect of light on pigments.

Hodgson has also designed seven unique dust jackets for Trading Memories each containing material found during her journey.

There will be a reception for Barbara Hodgson at W&L this Thursday night from 6-8pm.

Trading In Memories website
Brief interview with Hodgson

Barbara Hodgson: Other Ways of Seeing Books

Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers is pleased to announce an exhibition of the work of Barbara Hodgson. “Barbara Hodgson: Other Ways of Seeing Books” will run from March 6 through April 30, 2008. Please join us for a reception for the artist on Thursday, April 3, from 6-8pm.

Barbara Hodgson is a writer, book designer and photographer based in Vancouver, BC. She is the author and designer of four acclaimed illustrated novels; each a combination of good storytelling augmented with archival photographs, antique postcards, and rare engravings. Her non-fiction work includes her recent publication, Trading in Memories, 2007, an illustrated diary of her journeys as a world traveler, picking up bits and pieces of discarded material culture.

Her work has also been published in fine press limited editions by Heavenly Monkey Press in Vancouver, BC. Out of print titles include Good & Evil in the Garden and Expressed: Ten Philatelic Fictions. Her most recent work is The Temperamental Rose and Other Ways of Seeing Color, 2007, with noted Seattle bookbinder Claudia Cohen. This collaboration began during their first meeting in the summer of 2006, when they discovered mutual passions for color wheels and other systems for charting and codifying colors.

For the present exhibition, Hodgson has created a keepsake entitled The Temperamental Rose: An Experiment with Light. Each copy of the pamphlet is hand-colored with a selection of lightfast and fugitive watercolors. It is designed to be exposed to the sun over a period of a year to demonstrate the effect of light on pigments. The keepsake is available in a signed, limited edition of sixty copies.

The Cassidy 18: A Bookseller Reflects on His First Year

A little over year ago Brian Cassidy took over the Cannery Row Old Book Co. in Monterey, California and set up shop.

His recent blog post 18 Things I've Learned This Year (Or: 2007, A Bookseller’s Year in Review) is packed with little nuggets of bookselling wisdom and is a must read (and comprehend) for anyone who thinks that the bookselling life might be for them.

The Cassidy 18:

1) I will never run out of books. Never. There are always more books to be bought.

2) A corollary: There are always more GOOD books to be bought. If I feel like I’m not getting many of them, I’m not working hard enough.

3) I will never catalog all the books I have. Never.

4) I will always be messy. Always. Piles of books and paper are my destiny.

5) People who haggle over a five dollar book were never going to buy anything anyway.

6) Books ain’t money. Books don’t even make me money. I make me money. My overhead, time, and expertise create value. Please keep that in mind next time you think I’m being unreasonable offering you $100 for a book I’ll sell for $300. If you would like to rent a space and buy a reference library and catalog your book and list it on the internet and drag it to book fairs and wait who-knows-how-long to sell it, please be my guest. But if you want money today, please don’t insult me by suggesting you’re somehow being cheated.

7) Note to self: never give estimates of what you might pay for books over the phone or via email. ALWAYS have the books in hand first. Related: an annoyingly high percentage of people who bring in their books to “sell” only want a free appraisal.

8) “No, you can’t leave the books I don’t want here. Please, I really must insist. Seriously, have you looked behind this counter?” (See #s 1,3, and 5)

9) A first catalog is like falling in love - everything about it seems easy and fun and exciting.

10) A second catalog is more like marriage - a lot more work and a lot less exciting. But done well (fingers crossed), a lot more satisfying.

11) I still get a little thrill at diving into a box of new acquisition. I doubt this will ever go away or get old.

12) Nor, for that matter, will the little pang of dread when I remember I have to catalog most of them.

13) Shelving books is oddly calming - almost meditative.

14) Book fairs are a lot more work than they look like - a friggin’ lot of work. Two days (at least) to pack, a day to set up, two days (usually) to exhibit, then break-down, maybe a couple of days of travel, and then unpacking all those books you brought once you return. Even one-day local fairs require about a full week of work. Even so…

15) I love book fairs. Being in a roomful of dedicated dealers and serious buyers is just about my favorite way to spend a day.

16) I can’t tell you how many people come into the shop and tell me how great it is that I’m here and how much they love bookstores and how awful it is that so many are closing. Then they leave without buying a thing. This happens at least a couple times a week. I will never get this.

17) Related to #1 and 2: More and more I understand this is a business about customers, not books. To a large degree anyone can get books (witness the explosion of people calling themselves “booksellers”). What separates the successful dealer from the one who bitches and moans all the time? One has customers, the other doesn’t. The question is not whether you have books or not, the question is do you have anyone to sell them to.

18) I love my job.

Earliest Recording of Ginsberg's Howl Uncovered in Portland

The box was labeled "Snyder Ginsberg 1956" and it had been at the Hauser Library at Reed College for over 50 years waiting for someone to open it.

Finally, while at Reed researching his upcoming biography of Gary Snyder John Suiter opened the box.

What did he find in it?

A tape containing the earliest known recording of Allen Ginsberg reading Howl!

The reading took place in February 1956 predating Ginsberg's legendary, and until now presumed first recording of Howl, which occurred at the Town Hall Theater in Berkeley on March 18, 1956.

Gary Snyder, a Reed alumni (class of 1951), and Ginsberg were on a hitchhiking tour of the Pacific Northwest when they visited Reed College in February 1956.

During their two day visit Ginsberg gave a couple of readings one of which was recorded. "On it Ginsberg can be heard reading "Wild Orphan," "Over Kansas," "A Supermarket in California" and other poems before someone, presumably Snyder, asks, "Do you want to read Howl?"
Ginsberg replied:"I really don't...I don't know if I have the energy." Then Ginsberg went on to read the "first part of "Howl" in a steadily building rhythm but stops four lines into the second section and says, "I don't really feel like reading anymore. I just sorta haven't got any kind of steam, so I'd like to cut. Do you mind?"

"This isn't just any tape. Not only is it the earliest known recording of one of the most famous poems of the 20th century, but also the sound quality is excellent, and Ginsberg gives a strong, clear reading with enough textual variations in "Howl" and the other poems to keep literary scholars busy for years." says Jeff Baker in his piece in the Oregonian, Books news: Earliest "Howl" tape uncovered at Reed.

Though there are still some questions ( like who recorded the reading and where, and the tape was labeled 'Tape 2' begging the question what happened to 'Tape 1' and what was on it) unearthing the recording is a seminal event in Beat history and one that solidifies the role of the Pacific Northwest in the evolution of the Beat Movement.

Reed College Press Release

Short e-mail interview with Gary Snyder by Baker at the Oregonian, Gary Snyder on hitchhiking and "Howl" at Reed

The Library of Congress Hits the Jackpot on Flickr

No one saw this coming.

The plan was simple enough. The Library of Congress teamed with Flickr for a pilot project called The Commons, which basically consisted of LOC opening a Flickr account and uploading a little over 3,000 images (the LOC houses 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials!)

The goal was to address two of the major challenges the library faces:
1. "how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and
2. "how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity."

The result was astonishing and could arguably be one of the greatest cultural achievements to date in the young world of social networking.

Here's what happened within two days:

• All 3,100+ photos have been viewed
• 420 of the photos have comments
• 1,200 of the photos have been favorited
• 392,000 views on the photostream
• 650,000 views of photos
• About 1.1 million total views on our account

In their wildest dreams no one at either the LOC or Flickr expected this kind of public response.

"Frankly, none of us could quite fathom how fantastic the response to the pilot has been." is how they put it at Flickr's blog.

And Matt Raymond of the Library of Congress responded by saying "I can tell you that the reaction to this two-day-old project has already vastly exceeded our expectations."

This is a watershed event. It is a solid web 2.0 victory and one that just might expand the boundaries of social networking, where people are interacting with places as much as with people.

For the Library of Congress, and all the libraries that are watching how this pilot turns out, it is a brave new world. Now the conversation must include the question - what are we doing to bring our collections to the public? Your collection strategy can longer be solely focused on having people come to you to see what you have or in loaning items to other institutions, museums etc.

The success of this pilot might also have an affect on the Google Book Search model that many libraries are endorsing. Maybe libraries need a more multi-dimensional Web 2.0 approach to their collections, one that encompasses more than just digitizing the contents of their books.


Image from the Bain Collection at the LOC