Ananda Pellerin - Böcker

Sunshine and nature: California as a beacon of better healthSince the mid-19th century, the idea of California has lured many waves of migrants. Here, writer and editor Lyra Kilston explores a less examined attraction: the region’s promise of better health. From ailing families seeking a miracle climate cure to iconoclasts and dropouts pursuing a remedy to societal corruption, the abundance of sunshine and untamed nature around the small but growing Los Angeles area offered them refuge and inspiration.In the wild west of medical practice, eclectic nature-cure treatments gained popularity. The source for this trend can be traced to the mountains and cold-water springs of Europe, where early sanatoriums were built to offer the natural cures of sun, air, water and diet; this sanatorium architecture was exported to the West Coast from Central Europe, and began to impact other types of building.Sun Seekers: The Cure of California constitutes the second volume of The Illustrated America (following 2016's Old Glory), Atelier Éditions’ ongoing series excavating America’s cultural past.Lyra Kilston is a writer and editor focused on architecture, history, design and urbanism. Her work has appeared in Artforum, Los Angeles Review of Books, Time, Wired and Hyperallergic, among other publications. She was on the curatorial team of Overdrive: LA Constructs the Future, 1940–1990, exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Building Museum.

Foraging for mushrooms with John Cage: writing, art, photography and ephemera from an idiosyncratic chapter in the composer's lifeImagined as an extended mushroom-foraging expedition, John Cage: A Mycological Foray gathers together Cage’s mushroom-themed compositions, photographs, illustrations and ephemera. Indeterminacy Stories and other writings by Cage are interwoven throughout the first volume within a central essay examining Cage’s enduring relationship with mycology. Also included is a transcript of Cage’s 1983 performance, MUSHROOMS et Variationes. The second volume is the inaugural reproduction of Cage’s 1972 portfolio, Mushroom Book, authored in collaboration with illustrator Lois Long and botanist Alexander H. Smith. Readers are thus drawn through the landscape of Cage’s mycologically centred oeuvre and interests, discovering assorted works, images, compositions, philosophies and ephemera, as one might encounter assorted fungi and flora while foraging.John Cage: A Mycological Foray constitutes a new, idiosyncratic chapter in Cage’s oeuvre, a departure from the composer’s more established narrative.American composer and music theorist John Cage (1912–92) was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music and a leading figure of the postwar avant-garde. His influence extended to the realms of dance, poetry, performance and visual art.

A two-volume archival excavation of Noguchi’s enduring relationship with GreeceNoguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi examines the relationship between one of the 20th century’s most celebrated artists, Isamu Noguchi (1904–88), and the Mediterranean country he regularly visited for decades through the lens of Objects of Common Interest (OoCI). This two-volume set considers the influence of Greek culture on Noguchi’s work, and the metamorphosing identity he established from engaging with multiple cultures, diverse practitioners and a variety of mediums.Letters, photographs, sketches and words from the artist himself—some never seen before now—reveal the intimate relationship Noguchi had with Greece. New writings explore the Japanese American interdisciplinarian’s creative community, including futurist Buckminster Fuller and choreographer Martha Graham; while contemporary visual essays reinterpret Noguchi’s enduring legacy across today’s design and art practices.New texts delve into Noguchi’s fruitful collaborations with his creative community, including futurist architect Buckminster Fuller and choreographer Martha Graham, and reinterprets Noguchi’s enduring legacy across today’s design and art practices. Featured texts provided by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Hsiao-Yun Chu, Dakin Hart, Noguchi, Fuller, Jannis Varelas, Dr Nicholas Paissios and Katerina Koskina. Visual responses to OoCI’s work, in conversation with Noguchi’s ever-evolving practice, come from photographers Marco Arguello, Iwan Baan, Yiannis Bournias, Lauren Coleman, Brian W Ferry, Adrianna Glaviano, Brooke Holmes, Naho Kubota, Mathjis Labadie, Jana Romanova, Omar Sator, Matthieu Salvaing and Stefanos Tsakiris.Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi is an extension of a research and exhibition project initiated by OoCI with the Noguchi Museum in New York.

An engrossing look at the rich and turbulent history of coloring clothOver the centuries our manipulation of the natural world has resulted in an explosion of synthetic dye production and application globally. To gain insight into the history of how folk practices have been lost and technical processes found, anthropologist and textile artist Lauren MacDonald explores a practice that is both ancient and wholly modern: coloring cloth. The pursuit of color has long spurred economic and social contest, and through this deeply researched volume we explore the stories that the materials used to dye cloth tell us about our complex relationship to nature, our troubling ideas about progress and our understanding of power and labor.In Pursuit of Color brings together historic techniques, archive photography, specimens and present-day events to tell the histories of some of the world’s most important dyestuffs. A 32-page supplement accompanies the volume, detailing practical applications and the chemistry behind dyeing processes. The book comes in three different covers (red, yellow and blue) which are shipped randomly as a further happy surprise.Lauren MacDonald (born 1990) is a Canadian-born multidisciplinary artist, designer and founder of the London, UK textiles studio Working Cloth. She has a background in material culture, textile science and fashion.

The hassle-free, no-frills instruction manual for commercial success in the art worldIn her 25 years of working with artists at all stages of their careers, Amy Davila has formulated the answer to the quintessential question of the modern art world: “Which external circumstances does a tempestuous and original mind need to succeed?” For artists, Davila’s systematic ArtSmart Method brings order to the chaos of the creative process: whether it’s harnessing an idea, generating income, negotiating with collaborators and galleries, or growing their practice into a brand. Now available as a book, The ArtSmart Method offers an accessible and insightful mix of financial advising, business and career consulting, and constructive advice.This much-anticipated volume places Davila’s empathy, wisdom and know-how into the hands of artists the world over. Each chapter carries the reader through the stages of the ArtSmart Method, from creation to completion, all the while addressing questions of money, exposure and legacy. Davila guides artists through everything from harnessing their network and turning threats into opportunities, to negotiating business contracts and cash flow management. The thought exercises and business tools in this book are presented from an artist’s perspective, taking into careful consideration timing, accessibility and design. Whatever success looks like to each artist, The ArtSmart Method will prove they don’t have to suffer to achieve it.Amy Davila is the founder of ArtSmart Inc, a Los Angeles–based art consultancy. Former director of David Zwirner and former faculty member of the Sotheby’s Institute of Art and Claremont Graduate University, she founded ArtSmart to help artists, galleries and art organizations achieve financial, business and career success.

A record of the rise and fall of the BMC farm that foregrounds the voices of a new cast of characters Black Mountain College (BMC) was a wellspring of 20th-century creative unorthodoxy. From its founding in 1933 and over its celebrated 23-year history, the small liberal arts school in rural North Carolina attracted a remarkable number of famous and soon-to-be famous artists, writers and visionaries including Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Ray Johnson, Charles Olson and M.C. Richards. The exploits of these BMC cultural luminaries have been recounted time and time again.David Silver’s fascinating new book offers a very different perspective. The farm was vital to BMC. Throughout the Depression and World War II it provided vital sustenance, while serving as a testing ground for self-sufficiency, communal living and collaboration—the most precious and precarious ingredient at the college.Through deep original research, The Farm at Black Mountain College follows renegade students, faculty and farmers as they establish a campus farm in the 1930s, build a better farm in the 1940s and watch it all collapse in the 1950s. We meet a new cast of BMC characters whose stories have seldom, if ever, been explored, and whose adventures in agriculture illuminate what exactly happened at BMC across the decades, from optimistic community building to its plunge into substance-addled scarcity. In these engrossing pages, we encounter the extraordinary folk whose endeavors on the land helped shape the Black Mountain College of myth and extraordinary reality.David Silver (born 1968) is professor and chair of environmental studies at the University of San Francisco. He teaches classes on urban agriculture, hyperlocal food systems and food, culture and storytelling.