Blurring Books – serie

NYC Restaurant Ads, 1983-1998 is the first archival project by Nikki Igol's Public Image Library, published in collaboration with Blurring Books. Drawn from the Public Image Library's print archive, the book documents the evolution of the Manhattan dining scene, as presented in the advertising section of magazines such as Interview, Paper, and Details. This visual archive captures both the evolution of culinary discovery and graphic design as the finicky New York diner, always in search of the "it" spot, discovers the cuisines of the world and the neighborhoods of Manhattan. Restaurants are an ephemeral expression of culture; these advertisements document the ever-evolving New York taste.

Acme BOY: The Birth of Punk & Anti-Fashion 1975 - 1985...and Other Twisted, True Stories from Pre-Internet CountercultureBy Phil StrongmanIt’s 50 years since the ‘street couture’ shop Acme Attractions opened - and November 1975 sees the 50th anniversary of the first SEX PISTOLS gig. Which makes it perfect timing for Phil Strongman's Acme BOY - the stunning inside story of Acme, BOY, PUNK and ‘anti-fashion’; the London youth culture explosions of the 1970s and ‘80s - eruptions that end up having global influence.By turns amusing, intriguing and shocking, Acme BOY features not only the author's own story - and his involvement with the Pistols, The Clash, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood - but also contains exclusive words from Acme Attractions founder John Krivine and BOY co-founder Steph Raynor. These two men had shops crammed with classic jukeboxes and staffed by film-maker and Radio 6 DJ Don Letts, Rough Trade boss Jeannette Lee, DJ Jay Strongman (relation) and stylist Eric Rose. Their customers included John Lydon, Sid Vicious, Bob Marley, Andy Warhol, Rudolf Nureyev, Peter O’Toole, Rod Stewart, Daryl Hall, Boy George, Joe Strummer, Chrissie Hynde, Billy idol, Patti Smith, Deborah Harry, Philip Sallon, Steve Strange and Adam Ant… And BOY clothing, now labelled BOY LONDON, continues to be worn by 21st century stars like Rihanna, Madonna, Cara Delevingne and Jessie J - yet the untold story of the brand’s tangled roots are both revealing and fascinating.Back in 1975 and 1976 King’s Road proto-punk was initially dubbed The Big Sleaze by fashion mags before it rapidly became notorious as Punk, the shattering scene that shocked the UK, caused riots in Chelsea, raised questions in Parliament and basically invented the Indie genre; inspiring film-makers such as Quentin Tarantino and musicians REM, Nirvana, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Green Day and many others in the US, Europe, Japan, Korea and worldwide.Post-Punk, Mod, New Romanticism, Two-Tone, Goth, Rockabilly, the Warehouse scene all followed in swift succession - writer and film-maker Strongman saw these movements develop and was deeply involved in many of them. He is unique in being the only person to have designed for Acme Attractions and BOY and Fans - whilst later managing bands, taking photos and supplying clothes to Sign of The Times, Ad Hoc, BOY and Vivienne Westwood. His designs have been worn by Anita Pallenberg, Roger Daltrey, Billy Connelly and Pamela Stephenson as well as hundreds of Punk, New Wave and Indie musicians.With its gripping text and an array of rare and unseen photos, images and illustrations, Acme BOY is one of the most important, and personal, contemporary books to explore London fashion in general and the ‘70s Punk era in particular.

"Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired..‘HALT’, Acronym; A tool used in addiction and, or, alcohol treatment that identifies the four leading triggers of substance abuse, relapse, and poor decision making.HALT, set amongst multiple American rehabs, is an undeniably wild ride through the psyche of addicts and alcoholics across the inevitable jails, institutions, and death that become their lives. The writer takes us through what is occurring from a patient’s perspective ; whether it be something spoken in a smoking area, or being preached by a therapist in a class on the dangers of drug and alcohol use. HALT shows the stark, specific, environment and interactions that are occurring in what is becoming an exponentially larger industry by the day.Note From The Author-It is impossible to tune in to society today without facing the crisis that is addiction. Whether it be flipping through cable television or scrolling on any form of social media… whatever you are viewing, within minutes you are bound to come face to face with the epidemic currently occurring on America’s streets. ‘HALT’ is more than just a direct look into the lives of the sick and suffering. It tells the life story, the heartbeat and soul, of addicts and alcoholics. What adversity, and monotony, they face… As well as what is being taught and spoken about in rehab in America as we speak. How they cope through storytelling and “war-storying”; a term used to describe past events and memories involving substance abuse. These quotes, conversations, and images are poetry. They put any reader that has been through rehab directly back into the halls, classrooms, and patios that they once walked. Flipping through pages evoke such strong memories that I can smell a mirage of menthol cigarette smoke. For someone in recovery, these pages provide a comfort… And for the unknowing reader, it serves as a testament to the fact that their is no quick-fix for addiction or alcoholism. Their is no physical piece of literature like this that provides a “boots-on-the-ground”, present day, perspective as to what rehab in America is. It is pure, unadulterated, absurdity at times. Moments of agony and hilarity, of revelation and self destruction, of passion and apathy — all under a roof made up of the misunderstood, the unwilling, and the ‘desperate-for-a-change’. All of them mythical storytellers, but few of them able to find the salvation that rehab is selling. It brings me joy to know that family members of those in recovery as well as those fascinated by this narcotic epidemic get to see first hand and understand what individuals go through in the roughly $42 billion dollar a year rehabilitation industry..."

Trip Advisor is a collection of transcribed travel notes from over 25 years of trip journal entries by Ryan McGinness. This artist’s book analyses his psychedelic visions with hindsight annotations and reproductions of artworks made during those years. McGinness asks, “Can we transcend the use of mushrooms to gain insights that move us beyond their healing powers? Can we use psychedelics to explore the mind, come back, and report our findings?” McGinness has attempted to answer these questions. These are his discoveries.

Bike Life is a community that borders on a movement—artistic, social, and expressive. The scene is predominantly composed of young adults and teens from diverse backgrounds and genders from all over the city who express a creative language and personal style through bike tricks—wheelies, swerving, dancing, and surfing.Gatherings happen regularly as ride-outs, where anywhere between 10 and 1500 bikers ride en mass, weaving through the city for anywhere between 10 and 35 miles while mesmerizing bystanders with a parade of stunts and choreographed and freestyle compositions. Bike Life's circulating message, "We're outside," speaks to a certain adjoining vibe—of freedom and positivity, staying true, celebrating, and lifting up each other's individual styles, not only on the bike but in their world that follows, in their being.Bike Life—it's the movement and tricks and being in the flow. It's the feeling of wind while you map the city. It's popping wheelies with your pack. In Bike Life, that bike is life.https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/biking-outside-the-lines-in-new-york-cityhttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/new-york-city-bike-culture

The Empire Strikes Book is a 500-page book gathers the full arc of a lifelong fascination—drawings and works born from the Star Wars universe. The book begins with the artist's earliest, childhood sketches at age seven in 1977, when the first film detonated the imaginations of viewers across the world. JK5's work is organized by year and provides a visual progression of his skill, style formation, and infatuation with the franchise. The Empire Strikes Book is a visual feast that is chock-full of fan-favorite characters reimagined in JK5's unique style."I drew obsessively through the original trilogy years. In 1994, during my senior year at the Rhode Island School of Design, I felt the desert winds of the 'Dune Sea' calling me back. That autumn, as I began tattooing in earnest, I adopted JK5 as my nom de plume (Jedi Knight, Red 5), and the visual grammar of Star Wars evolved into a parallel mythology—part homage, part catalyst. It became a lens through which I explored identity, expression, and the construction of my own personal cosmology. This work is the record of that journey." - JK5

ILLEGAL: Rave Flyers of the 90s is a 500-page, encyclopedic collection of rave & party promotional flyers from the birth of EDM in America.DB Burkeman, formerly known as DJ DB, went back to the rave promoters from his 90s gigs to collect material for this book. Showcasing flyers, drawings, & other ephemera alongside firsthand accounts, ILLEGAL documents the evolution of graphic design during the rise of home computers and charts the development of cutting-edge styles, many of which are still in use today.For the book, DB conducted Q&As with seminal DJs & promoters such as Kevin Saunderson, Richie Hawtin, DJ Icey, Frankie Bones, & more to unpack the thrills & challenges of throwing events in the pre-internet age.A must for anyone interested in graphic design, counterculture, or both!

Coming of Rage is a collection of 80, black and white photographs of protests by Ed Eckstein. The book is divided into four sections: the Vietnam era, Civil Rights, elections and MAGA. Eckstein’s photographs span 60 years of differing opinions and ideological clash in the United States.Coming of Rage does not seek to be a theory or history of protest, it considers the historical and present characteristics of protests in the United States.More than ever in past and current times protest movements continue to disrupt given narratives, using activism and resistance to express and voice dissent. Protests are an attempt to shape the world we live in, wrestling power from those in charge to create a fairer world.“As I wander and photograph through the throngs of signs and concerned citizens, I share a common hope that their messages and my work can lead to help prevent truth decay, and lead to dialogue and not distrust.” – Ed Eckstein

Just as long as I have been searching for meaningful compositions and striking light onthe streets of NY, I have been searching my archive to find that special shot I took 15, 20years ago or even yesterday. I organize imagery using descriptive words, dates,names and location. For instance, I'll search " BROADWAY" or " BIRD " or "CROSSWALK". Thegroupings that emerge are always fascinating to me, the random connective threadssometimes disparate, tell a story a new story. These stories are about how we move withina cityscape, communicate, love, fight, dance and survive. The streets are like a canvaswhere a piece of wood in a trash can becomes a beautiful sculpture, where the rooftopsare a spiritual respite from the streets — yet still part of the same pulse, the same club.  Theway we move through public space — walking, dancing, skating, or even fighting — has adistinct rhythm, a pace that belongs distinctly to NYC. This is THE WHILES NYC. -Cheryl Dunn

POP LIFE treats the often-discarded bottle cap with the reverence of art historical paintings and sculptures, inviting readers to appreciate the beauty and context embedded in these tiny works of Americana art. This unique book unveils the intricate graphic design, historical significance, and thought-provoking stories behind the bottle caps of long-gone American beverage companies, offering an unprecedented look at a piece of metal that holds so much history and yet is rarely explored in such vivid detail. The caps of renowned collectors including Todd Selbert and Ron Small in Connecticut, Barry Oremland in Massachusetts, and Phil Pfeiffer in Nebraska are featured within the pages.The first side of the double-sided book—POP—moves through a delightful and surprising array of Americana themes: old school Disney characters, sports clubs, olde tavern mischief, devils, angels, and the Harvey Ball smiley face. It serves as a historical document of these tiny works of art. Flip the book over and now you have LIFE, where cheeky, hopeful, raunchy, and politically punning stories and jokes abound, as Griffith uses the bottle cap brand names themselves to create sophisticated yet Dad Joke-y wordplay puns The interactive production of POP LIFE generates “a laugh-out-loud / did you get that?” game activity the whole family can enjoy.Through these visual narratives, readers experience the interplay of American optimism and charm within an era when thousands of independent bottlers across the U.S. vied for consumer attention with their own distinct designs and branding. To round out the book, collector Todd Selbert contributes a text that speaks to the bottle-cap collector lifestyle.

Pandemic Architecture: NYC Dining Sheds from 2020-2024, a photo essay by New Yorker Penny Hardy, captures a singular moment in time when restaurants were forced onto the streets of New York City to survive. Interiors once hidden from view were turned inside out. Freed from conventional building regulations, a wildly varied landscape of outdoor dining structures emerged. Owners' personalities, tastes, fantasies, and construction skills were suddenly on display in a return to old-school punk, DIY values. It was a democracy of building the city had not seen in modern memory. With commentary by Michael Bullock, Fred Bernstein and Robert Hammond.

In Downtown Drive-by, Jon Waldo provides a visual, time capsule from a very different New York. The city was cheap and incredibly interesting at that time. New, challenging art and music seemed to appear every day.Graffiti was evolving, too. Uptown and on the trains, incredible wild-style pieces were blowing up. Downtown was alive with a flux of messages and marks. Beautiful images were turning up one day and painted over the next—with images bleeding into each other and colliding in unexpected ways. "The visual energy was incredible and life-changing for me."Waldo had graduated from art school a year earlier and the work he was interested in was very conceptual and minimal. It asked a lot of questions about the formal aspects of artwork. "But Downtown quickly taught me what art could be. Graffiti was a public art for everyone to see. You didn't have to be enclosed in a gallery situation. You could just see it and do it."Waldo's first job when he got back to the city was driving a truck and delivering art supplies for David Davis. His store sold to everybody and he got to go to a lot of cool studios but was captivated by the work he saw on the street while driving between deliveries."Photography for me was an expensive proposition, but almost unconsciously, I got a used camera and just started taking pictures when I was driving for work. I had the need to possess what I saw."These pictures are a portal. They are from a world of terrible tragedy and great creativity. "I feel blessed to be a witness to that time."

In an abandoned storage unit in Philadelphia, a collector discovered more than 150 works on paper by a presumably self-taught artist. The works fall into distinct groups--pencil drawings that are often sexual jokes, explicit watercolor scenes, and drawings on mimeograph paper.Clues to the identity of the artist and the timeframe in which the works were made are embedded in the materials. The ledger paper and safety protocol forms that presumably he used as a support bear the letterhead of the well-known Philadelphia chemical manufacturing company Rohm & Haas, established in 1909. A partially affixed mailing label on the back of one of the drawings gives a Philadelphia address and indicates "foreman" as the addressee. The date 1955 is written on the back of another drawing. The clothing and hairstyles depicted seem to date from the 1940s and 1950s. A search in the company's archives turns up a staff photograph from 1931 listing numerous foremen who might be the author of this erotic cache.Almost certainly made for his own personal amusement and titillation, the Philadelphia Foreman's erotic drawings are a rare and fascinating time capsule of American folk porn.-Excerpt from Mousse Magazine Folk Porn, Sexual Anxiety and American Masculinity: The Philadelphia Foreman by Alison M. Gingeras