New Blog

Hello friends,

We have a fancy new blog!

Yes, we've decided it's time to get serious and advance to the next stage of sophisticated blogdom – catagorised posts! So if Art is where you're at, or perhaps Design, Architecture, Fashion, Children's, Music or Literature, we've made it easier for you to see what's new.

Please come and visit us at http://grevillestbookstore.wordpress.com

Illusive: Contemporary Illustration Part 3

Gestalten, $128

 

 

Like the two issues that preceded it, Illusive: Contemporary Illustration Part 3 gathers together an international selection of contemporary positions in illustration to provide an overview of current developments within the field. Illustrations from both commercial and artistic contexts have been compiled to overcome the strict distinction between commercial and artistic illustration and to open up fresh possibilities for extending the virulent debate about contemporary art and design in a productive direction.

Heavenly Vaults: From Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture

David Stephenson

Princeton Architectural Press, $125

The Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages are among the world's greatest architectural achievements. Looking up at the soaring vaulted ceiling of a Gothic church, it is impossible not to marvel at the seemingly unending design variations of these transcendent structures. Photographer David Stephenson, author of our best-selling book of dome photography Visions of Heaven, continues his exploration of the architecturally sublime by focusing his camera on the amazing vaulted ceilings of the medieval churches, cathedrals, and basilicas of Europe. Stephenson presents more than eighty Romanesque and Gothic vaults in kaleidoscopic photographs that reveal their complex geometrical structures, decorative detailing, and ornamental painting in ways they have never before been seen. 

Unfolded: Paper in Design, Art, Architecture and Industry

Petra Schmidt and Nicola Stattmann

Birkhauser, $130

 

In Unfolded: Paper in Design, Art, Architecture and Industry paper conquers the third dimension. The undreamed-of possibilities paper holds today for lightweight construction, product design, fashion and art are demonstrated through a survey of paper projects. From Paper, the collection of bags by Stefan Diez, to the paper models of Konstantin Grcic and the scented paper garments of Issey Miyake, this book presents paper as a high-quality contemporary and ecological material. From Japanese washi paper and paper foam, to ceramic paper and carbon fibre paper, Unfolded presents the latest in research and development, as well as the most important methods and technologies in handcrafts and industry.

Toyo Ito

Phaidon, $120

 

Though Ito's designs still show early influences, after the Sendai Mediatheque (2001) he began to leave behind what he increasingly saw as the boring and inappropriate boxes favoured by modernism, and move toward a light, sensuous and often organic architecture that engages with the cities around it and the people who inhabit it. These ideas are exemplified in this unique volume, where Toyo Ito presents a selection of his projects, all extensively illustrated with photos, diagrams, drawings, and computer realisations. Each of the book's projects and thematic sections is introduced with a short essay by Ito. The distinguished Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto has provided an introduction to the book, while the well-known critics Dana Buntrock (USA) and Taro Igarashi (Japan) have contributed essays that provide valuable perspective on Ito's complex works.

Wallpaper: The Ultimate Guide

Charlotte Abrahams

Quadrille Publishing, $75

 

In this stunning book Charlotte Abrahams gets to the heart of the exciting contemporary wallpaper scene. Divided into three main areas of design – pasted pictures, fabulous florals and architectural illusions – each section begins with what is happening now, then traces the history through key moments, developments, designers and manufacturers to the origins of the style.

New designers and established manufacturers, funky layered images and classic designs, the latest visual technology and hand-painted historical scenes are all discussed and illustrated. Expert advice on selecting colour schemes, mixing florals with geometrics, using large and small prints, zoning and other techniques is also included. Wallpaper really is the ultimate guide.  

Case Study Houses: The Complete CSH Program 1945–1966

Edited by Peter Goessel

Taschen, $170 

The Case Study House program (1945-66) was an exceptional, innovative event in the history of American architecture and remains to this day unique. The program, which concentrated on the Los Angeles area and oversaw the design of 36 prototype homes, sought to make available plans for modern residences that could be easily and cheaply constructed during the post-war building boom.

The program's chief motivating force was Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza, a champion of modernism who had all the right connections to attract some of architecture's greatest talents, such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen. Highly experimental, the program generated houses that were designed to re-define the modern home, and thus had a pronounced influence on architecture – American and international – both during the program's existence and even to this day.

Case Study Houses: The Complete CSH Program is a monumental retrospective of the entire program with comprehensive documentation, brilliant photographs from the period and, for the houses still in existence, contemporary photos, as well as extensive floor plans and sketches.

Taschen’s New York: Hotels, Restaurants & Shops

Angelika Taschen

Taschen, $90

 

Angelika Taschen has been behind the velvet rope, explored the secret unmarked restaurants and beloved downtown delis, scoured Soho, Nolita and Tribeca’s uber-stylish shops, and scoped out hotels from the sleek and chic to the hidden and charming. In this book she gives you a backstage pass that will let you access a New York that even many New Yorkers miss out on. You’ll sip Martinis on barstools designed by Mies van der Rohe, buy bagels from Russ’s daughters, and sleep in a room with views of Bowery rooftops or Frederick Law Olmsted’s landmark Central Park. With this guide you’ll experience New York for all its glory.

Anish Kapoor: Shooting into the Corner

Edited by Peter Noever

Hatje Cantz, $99

 

Widely admired for his artfully shaped mounds of vibrantly coloured powder pigment, Bombay-born, London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor won the Turner Prize in 1991. Since the 1970s, Kapoor has explored the themes of spirituality and transcendence – a preoccupation that has its roots in his native India – through poetically abstract works in materials as diverse as stone, steel and glass. This volume introduces three performative wax pieces unlike any he has previously produced, where a technician has loaded a nine-foot-long cannon, shooting a 40-pound blood-red wax blob into the corner. The resulting trace has been described as ‘a giant gunshot wound’. An essay by Vito Acconci is published along with Kapoor's wax works from 1992 to the present, and his print work from 1987 to the present. This selection of works allow a closer exploration of the interplay between painting and sculpture in his oeuvre.

Eighty years of book cover design

Joseph Connolly

Faber and Faber, $49.99

 

As part of Faber's eightieth anniversary celebrations, Joseph Connolly – book collector, antiquarian dealer, and acclaimed novelist – has compiled an impassioned guide and love letter to the designers, artists and authors at the heart of Faber's design story.

From its beginnings in the 1920s and 1930s on to the classic years of innovation under Berthold Wolpe after the War, and from the celebrated period of collaboration with Pentagram on to the modern day, here is, as he concludes in his preface, “a lavish celebration of the art and beauty of these magnificent covers, from just the first eighty years”.

Good design

Terry Marks with Matthew Porter

Rockport, $75

 

What is good design? How is it judged and valued by not only designers, but the end users? Thirty top creatives in varying design disciplines weigh-in on this important topic from aesthetics, to form, to function. Examples of good design are presented throughout the book along with explanations of why the work is deemed effective. This backward approach to design theory—from completed piece back to construction—will enable readers to discover why the design works and how they can use this information in their own projects.

Lickshot

Ben Watts

Princeton Architectural Press, $95

 

Lickshot is Ben Watts's highly personalized scrapbook and travel diary. A triumph of lo-fi style, its pages are a delirious pastiche of gritty photographs, wonky Polaroids, and hand-scrawled graffiti, held together by slashes of colored tape. Its contents reflect the incredible variety of Watts's photographic subjects – from high school ice skaters, Brooklyn biker gangs, and lounging sunbathers to world-famous actors, supermodels, and today's hottest musicians. Lickshot includes photos of Heath Ledger, Benicio del Toro, Tobey Maguire, Rachel Weisz, Guy Pearce, Adrien Brody, Bruce Springsteen, Lil Wayne, Lou Reed, Jay-Z, Coldplay, T.I., Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, André 3000, B. B. King, Mary J. Blige, and Ben Harper. An interview with Watts by Vanity Fair editor Ingrid Sischy explores Watts's background and creative influences.

The transformer

Marie Neurath, Robin Kinross

Hyphen press, $43.50

 

The visual work of Otto Neurath and his associates, now commonly known as Isotype, has been much discussed in recent years. This short book explains its essential principles: the work of ‘transforming’, or putting information into visual form. This deeper level of their work – which is applicable in all areas of design – is routinely neglected in the assumption that Isotype is just a matter of symbols and pictograms. At the core of the book is a previously unpublished essay by Marie Neurath, the principle Isotype transformer, which she wrote in the last year of her life. This is supplemented by Robin Kinross with commentary on illustrated examples of Isotype and other supporting short essays.

Bob & Joan

REVOLUTION IN THE AIR: THE SONGS OF BOB DYLAN VOL 1: 1957-1973

by Clinton Heylin

HB  $45

No matter how big the corpus of writings on Dylan grows, it seems that each year brings us a weighty new tome that challenges or expands our perceptions of his career to date. Clinton Heylin is no stranger to Dylan, having published several previous books, including the classic Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades – Take Two. But he’s maybe outdone himself with this new project, the first of two books that will look at every song that Dylan has written, beginning with ‘Song to Brigit’, rumored to be the first ever song Dylan wrote circa 1956-57, through to 2006.

 

This first volume recounts the stories behind 300 songs Dylan wrote from his earliest days up until Planet Waves. Heylin goes to great lengths in his introduction to distinguish his book from others, in particular his decision to set out the songs in the order in which they were written rather than recorded. He includes every song Dylan is known to have written, including those never recorded, and for the latter, where possible, he tracks down original manuscripts of lyrics rather than relying on transcripts from live concert recordings. For each entry or song, Heylin provides the story, the context, the background, stylistic or other influences, and provides data on first performance, first recording, and prior publication of the lyrics. Song entries run from half a page to half a dozen pages.

 

It is probably fair to say this is not a book for reading cover to cover, certainly not in a single sitting. Heylin’s research is meticulous and exhaustive, and probably best approached whilst listening to the songs on a particular album, perhaps with a copy of the 1985 or 2004 collected lyrics to hand. But for anyone making the effort, there is much new information to be found here, Heylin’s aim being nothing less than “providing an authoritative history of the most multifaceted canon in twentieth century popular song.”

 

There are few artists who warrant this sort of attention. In last month’s Rhythms, Brian Wise spoke about a friend who’d lashed out on a Blue Ray DVD player, just so as to spend the next few months rooting around in Neil Young’s Archives Vol I. So too does Dylan deserve that special attention, perhaps more than any other popular recording artist. The more we listen, read and learn, the more we uncover, which is the sign of any great artist. In what is an increasingly crowded marketplace, Heylin’s new book rightfully takes its place on the shelf as one of the dozen essential books on Dylan’s remarkable career. As Dylan said in a 1985 interview: “It’s not for me to understand my songs... they make sense to me, but it’s not like I can explain them”. Thankfully, we have Heylin for that.  

 

AND A VOICE TO SING WITH: A MEMOIR

by Joan Baez

pb $34.95

For better or worse, it has been Joan Baez’s lot in life to have her name indelibly linked to that of Bob Dylan’s. I imagine this must grate at times, given their personal relationship was nearly half a century ago and lasted little more than three years, up until his triumphant tour of England in the spring of 1965. Of her first meeting with Bob, she remembers: “I first saw Bob Dylan in 1961 at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village. He was not overly impressive... He spat out the words to his own songs. They were original and refreshing, if blunt and jagged. He was absurd, new and grubby beyond words”. She was soon in love, introducing him at her shows, promoting his genius to whoever would listen; a favour not returned once his own career took off.

 

Baez proffers at the outset her gratitude to have been born gifted with a remarkable singing voice, a soprano pure as the driven snow. To that we could add her striking good looks, the product of Scottish and Mexican ancestry. Given her somewhat lower profile these days, it’s easy to forget just how big she was at the dawn of the sixties, debuting as a nineteen year old at the Newport Folk Festiv

al in 1959, selling out concert halls in New York and Boston by 1961, featuring on the cover of Time magazine in 1962, and eventually seeing the decade out in style at Woodstock. (Oh, and she tells us her name is pronounced more like “Bize”, rather than “Buy-ezz”).

 

Joan Baez first published her memoir in 1987, and my only complaint with this re-issue is that it hasn’t been updated to account for the past twenty years. However, that said, there’s more than enough living in her book to account for half a dozen lives. She is candid about her years with Dylan, and the pain he caused her, including her return match as part of Bob’s mid-seventies Rolling Thunder review, which saw her perversely dress up and perform onstage as his twin. She details other relationships, in particular her first husband David Harris, who was in prison for draft dodging at the time Baez performed at Woodstock, and her sister Mimi, wife of talented novelist Richard Farina, who was tragically killed in a motorcar accident in 1966.

 

But perhaps Baez has been defined more than anything else by her commitment to non-violence and politics. So po-faced and unwavering is she in pursuit of justice for all, that it’s easy to see why comic artist Al Capp felt impelled to poke fun at her by creating the character of Phoanie Joanie in his sixties strip Li’l Abner. Baez recounts her opposition to the Vietnam War, her visit to Hanoi, her role in Amnesty International, her support for mothers of the ‘disappeared’ in Argentina, her concerts in post-Franco Spain. She lectures and cajoles her audience from the stage between songs that, well, pretty much carry a political message anyway. Some of her personal memories, su

ch as her friendship with Martin Luther King, remain moving; others, such as her wide-eyed admiration for the walrus-mustached Lech Walesa, seem, with hindsight, past their use-by-date.

 

To its credit, Baez’s memoir goes out in style, as she performs in the circus that was Live Aid. Believing it to be the Woodstock for an eighties generation, she hitches herself to Sir Bob Geldof’s bandwagon. In reality, it turns out to be anything but, as rampant egos fight it out for best dressed and access to the ‘red mike’ during an all-in rendition of ‘We are the World’. She knows that the best of her career is behind her, and that, unlike Dylan, she’ll be forever relegated in people’s minds to the ghetto of sixties folk music. But she’s happy to be there, to be part of it all still, singing hand in hand with Chrissie Hynde, whilst eyeing off the “charismatic hunk of maleness” that is Don Johnson, having stayed true to her beliefs, and to the gift that she was born with.

—reviewed by Des Cowley

Gig Posters: Rock Show Art of the 21^st Century

Clayton Hayes

Quirk Books, $79.95

Since 2001, Gigposters.com has been the Internet’s first and best resource for rock-show poster art. Their massive online database showcases more than 90,000 posters from 7,000 different designers, including all of today’s top poster studios. Gig Posters Volume I highlights the 700+ best examples in their collection, including 101 perforated and ready-to-hang posters for bands such as Radiohead, Wilco, the Decemberists, the Shins, Arcade Fire, Sleater-Kinney, and more. Among the many designers contributing to this collection are Rob Jones (of White Stripes fame), The Decoder Ring (house artists for Modest Mouse), Patent Pending, Tara McPherson, and more. Packaged in an oversized 11-by-14-inch paperback, Gig Posters Volume I is a spectacular compilation of rock show art (and one hell of a cheap way to decorate a dorm room or apartment).

Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books

Jason Godfrey

Laurence King, $90

Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books is a unique, absorbing compilation of the best design books of the last 100 years. Covering a huge range of material – from historic titles by pioneering type foundries to the best of recent monographs from today’s leading studios – it provides a striking insight into the evolution of graphic design in the twentieth century. Classic graphic design manuals by László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Müller-Brockmann are included, alongside groundbreaking instructional titles on advertising and corporate identity. Monographs designed by and covering the major individuals and studios of the era – from A.M. Cassandre and Alexey Brodovitch to Stefan Sagmeister and Peter Saville – are explored, along with seminal anthologies on trademark design, Polish film posters, the impact of the avant-garde and more. All titles, whether classic histories of Bauhaus design or rarely seen sourcebooks of symbols and type, are illustrated with a wide selection of spreads and their covers, all in colour.

One Thousand Drawings

Tracy Emin

Rizzoli, $160

Tracey Emin has stirred controversy as well as acclaim since she rose to fame as the most highly publicised of the infamous Young British Artists. Though denounced by conservative critics at the outset, Emin’s work has attracted serious critical attention since the early 1990s for being consistently engaging, original, and startlingly direct. Her work has succeeded over the years in many media—from films to appliqués, embroideries, and installations—but it is in her works on paper that the honesty and frankness that have come to characterize her work are most fully realised. Edited by the artist herself from an archive of work stretching back before the beginnings of her career in the late 1980s, A Thousand Drawings is at once a collection of Emin’s works on paper, an exposé of her life as an artist, and a collectible artefact in itself.

New Chinese Architecture

Zhi Wenjun Xu Jie

Laurence King, $85

Over the last five years, China has experienced an unprecedented boom in architecture and has become the most dynamic and active region in the world. The complex fusion of both Chinese and Western influences has given its architecture a unique style. This comprehensive, wide ranging book showcases the most exciting projects  of recent years, with extensive imagery together with clear line drawings. It covers buildings all over China and of every type and scale: houses, school, universities, offices, retail spaces, galleries and museums. Across its 480 pages this book provides the most complete survey of contemporary Chinese architecture to date and will be indispensable for architects, students and all those with an interest in architecture.

Books and paraphernalia

Penguin Mugs

$24.95 each

Each mug features titles from the classic Penguin book series. The iconic book covers were originally designed by Edward Young in 1935 and this collection of porcelain mugs has been created in the UK by Tony Davis of Art Meets Matter under license from Penguin Books Ltd 

Miles Aldridge: Pictures for Photographs

Miles Aldridge

Steidl, $210

 

The notorious fashion photography of Miles Aldridge weds dream logic to opulent velvet glamour. His colours are saturated in the vein of David LaChapelle. Among his portrait subjects, it's unsurprising to find David Lynch, bathed in the projector's light – a godfather to Aldridge's appetite for spotlit scenarios of beautiful people engaged in dark misdoings. These staged scenarios have been seen in such magazines as Vogue and Numero, but the sensual sketches that inform them are scarcely known.

Pictures for Photographs explores the relationship between the sketches and the photographs, opening with the manic drawings that fill Aldridge’s sketchbooks in preparation for his shoots. Aldridge's sketches are crucial to his photography. By juxtaposing Aldridge's monotone drawings with his amplified, pop-inspired photographs, Pictures for Photographs offers new insight into Aldridge's imagination and working processes.

Jacques Grange Interiors

Pierre Passebon, Deke Dusinberre

Flammarion, $135

This work offers an all-access pass inside the luxurious homes created by this master interior designer. Combining good taste and audacity is a subtle art – tantamount to French style – that interior designer Jacques Grange has perfected for over four decades. In this impressive catalogue of Grange's creations, Oriental and North African influences blend with Western styles, from rococo opulence to modern chic, to create a broad spectrum of visual effects. Contemporary works of art by, for example, the Lalannes or Yue Minjun are given pride of place according to Grange's undeniable flair and collectors eye. But, remarkably, Grange is not afraid to strip everything away, and to make space itself the main focus of a room. Always balancing virtuoso flourishes with tasteful understatement, Grange's touch is unique.

Family: Photographs by Lauren Dukoff

Foreword by Devendra Banhart

Chronicle Books, $69.95

For many years Lauren Dukoff has been photographing close friend and musician Devendra Banhart and an extended, loose-knit international family of artists who share inspiration variously from folk, Tropicalia, and each other, as well as a range of other musical influences.  Family collects 100 of Dukoff’s striking portraits and candid images of Banhart, Joanna Newsome, Entrance, Bat for Lashes, Cibelle, Espers, Vetiver, Bert Jansch, Vashti Bunyan, and many others, individually and together, in performance and more private spaces.

Complementing the photographs are a foreword by Devendra Banhart, text and artwork by the musicians, biographies, and a digital download of music by artists featured in the book.