Art & Culture
- Tschabalala Self: Bodega Run
Tschabalala Self: Bodega Run
by Tschabalala Self
$55.00Self captures the community vibes of the New York City bodega in exuberantly chromatic paintings, sculptures and installations
Working across a range of mediums, including large-scale painting, printmaking, sculpture, collage and installation, Tschabalala Self’s (born 1990) exuberant and visually seductive artworks often focus on stories of urban life, the body and humanity to explore cultural attitudes toward race and gender.
Taking its title from the celebrated series of installations which culminated in a 2019 exhibition at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, Bodega Run documents Self’s multiyear-long exploration of the bodega—corner-store fixtures of New York City neighborhoods—as both a gathering place for community and a microcosm of the shifting political and economic forces that impact the lives of city dwellers, particularly of Black and Latin descent.
In vibrant paintings, sculptures and dizzying immersive installations, Self captures the densely stocked shelves, neon signs and intermingling characters of the New York City bodega. This lavishly designed monograph reproduces works and photographs from throughout the Bodega Run series, alongside significant new texts that expand on the project and Self’s practice and a sewn-in zine insert with photographs of New York bodegas. Tschabalala Self: Bodega Run is an essential look at a defining series of artworks by one of the most exciting young artists working today. - Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility
Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility
edited by Ashley James
$65.00*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*
From Dawoud Bey and Lorna Simpson to Sondra Perry and Kerry James Marshall, a multiethnic group of artists explores what it means to be seen, not seen or erased in the world through formal experimentations with the figure
Going Dark brings together a multigenerational group of contemporary artists who engage the "semi-visible" figure—representations that are partially (or fully) obscured, including, in some cases, literally darkened—and suggests that the concept of going dark is a tool that has been used by artists for decades to probe enduring questions surrounding both the potential and the discontents of social visibility. Across mediums—painting, photography, sculpture, video and installation—Going Dark names, charts and makes meaning of the semi-visible figure, arguing for its significance in contemporary art as a genre of unique conceptual and formal power. More than 125 works in all of these mediums by more than 25 artists are featured.
Essays by such curators as Legacy Russell and Jordan Carter, and professor Abbe Schriber, among others, contextualize the histories that inspired these works. In addition, four award-winning poets and three acclaimed graphic designers have contributed works.
Artists include: American Artist, Kevin Beasley, Rebecca Belmore, Dawoud Bey, John Edmonds, Ellen Gallagher, David Hammons, Lyle Ashton Harris, Tomashi Jackson, Titus Kaphar, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Joiri Minaya, Sandra Mujinga, Chris Ofili, Sondra Perry, Farah Al Qasimi, Faith Ringgold, Doris Salcedo, Lorna Simpson, Sable Elyse Smith, Stephanie Syjuco, Hank Willis Thomas, WangShui, Carrie Mae Weems and Charles White. - Basquiat: The Modena Paintings
Basquiat: The Modena Paintings
edited by Sam Keller
Sold outReuniting eight key Basquiat works that mark the graffiti artist’s transition to painterly autonomy
This catalog focuses on eight paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat made in the summer of 1982, when he traveled to Modena, Italy, for one of his first solo exhibitions in Europe at the gallery of Emilio Mazzoli. Within the span of just a few days, Basquiat painted a group of large-format paintings that surpassed his previous work in both scale and method. Each measuring around 6.5 by 13 feet, these works mark Basquiat’s transition from creating graffiti in the streets of Manhattan to painting on canvas. The conception and occasion of the exhibition ultimately proved fraught, and instead of conceding to pressure and expectations, Basquiat canceled the show. The paintings–including masterpieces that today are considered pivotal and among the most outstanding of his oeuvre–have never been shown together. This catalog revisits this crucial moment of Basquiat’s career and reunites them for the first time.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–88) grew up in Brooklyn. Notoriety came early, from his street paintings made under the tag SAMO. Later he stormed the gallery world, and became an icon of New York's vibrant early-’80s downtown scene, a friend to and collaborator with Andy Warhol and Francesco Clemente, and the cover boy for a 1985 New York Times Magazine story on the new art market. He died following a heroin overdose at 27. - The Nameplate: Jewelry, Culture, and Identity
The Nameplate: Jewelry, Culture, and Identity
by Marcel Rosa-Salas & Isabel Attyah Flower
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The Nameplate is a vibrant photographic celebration of nameplate jewelry featuring deeply personal stories and rich cultural contexts, collected by the creators of the Documenting the Nameplate project.
Nameplate jewelry comes in many shapes, styles, and sizes—from simple scripted pendants to bejeweled rings, belts, and bracelets with a first, last, and/or nickname. Like so many individuals who proudly wear nameplates, Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Attyah Flower were first introduced to this storied jewelry during childhood. Their love of the style gradually blossomed into a wide-reaching research project, Documenting the Nameplate, through which they've spent years collecting photographs and testimonials from nameplate-wearers across the country and world.
Featuring essays and interviews from scholars and cultural figures, portraits by contemporary photographers, archival imagery, and a historical exploration into the multifaceted and often overlooked significance of nameplate jewelry, The Nameplate is a tribute to the people who make, wear, and cherish it. - Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface
Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface
edited by Robert Hobbs
$40.00Themes and motifs in the art of Kara Walker, from blackface to abjection, by a leading art historian
In 2002, Kara Walker was selected to represent the United States at the prestigious São Paulo Art Biennial. Curator Robert Hobbs wrote extended essays on her work for this exhibition, and also for her show later that year at the Kunstverein Hannover. Because these essays have not been distributed in the US and remain among the most in-depth and essential investigations of her work, Karma is now republishing them in this new clothbound volume.
Among the most celebrated artists of the past three decades, with over 93 solo exhibitions to her credit, including a major survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker is known for her tough, critical, provocative and highly imaginative representations of African Americans and whites reaching back to antebellum times. In his analysis, Hobbs looks at the five main sources of her art: blackface Americana, Harlequin romances, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, Stone Mountain’s racist tourist attraction and the minstrel tradition. - Rick Lowe
Rick Lowe
by Dieter Roelstraete & Antwaun Sargent
$100.00Houston-based artist Rick Lowe is widely known for his pioneering contributions to the development of “social practice art,” work that landed him a MacArthur fellowship in 2014. What few people realize is that he was originally trained as a landscape painter. In recent years, Lowe has increasingly turned back to painting, producing complex multi-panel and quasi-abstract images that are deeply rooted in thirty years of work creating “social sculptures,” recalling the urban fabric of cities around the world that have formed the backdrop of many of his community-based art projects. This book, which brilliantly reproduces Lowe’s paintings, is the first dedicated to the work of this important American artist, focusing on his painterly practice and its origins in his work in the public sphere. - Micaiah Carter: What's My Name
Micaiah Carter: What's My Name
by Micaiah Carter
$60.00Micaiah Carter’s work is a singular alchemy of contemporary youth culture, fine art, street style, and the certainty that the simple act of representation can be a force for change.
Over the past decade Micaiah Carter has established himself as one of the most exciting and admired young photographers working in the field of portraiture and fashion. With a vision all his own, Carter's images are preternaturally sophisticated. His lighting is intentional but not attention-seeking, and his subjects always seem fully themselves, whether he’s photographing a celebrity, a musician, or a family member.
Micaiah’s portraits are sincere, dignified representations of the sitters while staying true to his distinctive aesthetic. His stylized ideas and assiduous attention to color and light have culminated in a body of work that feels timeless and pertinent at the same time. - Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Iconic Work
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Iconic Work
by Dieter Buchhart
$55.00The artist’s most inspired works in one volume.
Jean-Michel Basquiat—artist and art world provocateur—took New York City by storm with his powerful and complex works that relentlessly engaged with charged sociopolitical issues, including race, police brutality, and structural inequity. In this important volume, devoted to an exhibition at the Brant Foundation in their newly opened Manhattan outpost featuring the artist’s key works, Basquiat’s art returns to its East Village roots, contextualized for the first time in decades in the very neighborhood that served as one of his greatest inspirations.
Dieter Buchhart, noted Basquiat scholar and curator, brings together one hundred of the artist’s most important works, focusing on the best examples of the many subjects that informed Basquiat’s work, from jazz, anatomy, sports figures, comics, classical literature, the African diaspora, and art history. The exhibition partially restages three of the artist’s critical early shows, including an exhibition of the artist’s paintings and drawings of heads at Robert Miller Gallery; his most important canvases from Gagosian Gallery’s 1982 show in Los Angeles; and Basquiat’s solo show at Fun Gallery in the East Village. Buchhart also considers in-depth the artist’s so-called stretcher bar paintings, in which the normally hidden wooden supports for stretched canvases are exposed, works that have yet to be explored at length by scholars. In so doing, Buchhart offers a critical assessment of the enduring importance and legacy of the artist’s work.
© Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. - Black Masculinities: Creating Emotive Utopias through Photography
Black Masculinities: Creating Emotive Utopias through Photography
edited by Joshua Amissah
$50.00*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*
New visions and possibilities for Black masculinity through the lenses of 28 international photographers
In Black Masculinities, clichés of Black identity and masculinity are deconstructed and remade with exhilarating flexibility and imagination through the lenses of 22 Black photographers from around the world. Deeply embedded in histories of slavery, racism and oppression, Black masculinity is often mediated as aggressive, hypersexual and violent. Here, Swiss author, artist and editor Joshua Amissah compiles work that contributes to a wider spectrum of Black masculinities. By doing so, he writes, "[the photographers] are also questioning the narratological function of race and gender in visual culture as a whole … the stereotyped entanglement of ‘Black identity’ and ‘masculinity’ is visually deconstructed, partly reproduced and, more importantly, charged with a new set of values."
Photographers include: Kemka Ajoku, Kwaku Alston, Namafu Amutse, Eric Asamoah, Nuits Balnéaires, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Braylen Dion, Kofi Duah, Yannis Davy Guibinga, Jabari Jacobs, Kelvin Konadu, Jude Lartey, Naomi Mukadi, Maganga Mwagogo, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Ruby Okoro, RogersOuma, Micha Serraf, Ngadi Smart, Isaac West, Jozef Wright, and Ussi’n Yala. - Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè
Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè
by Didier William
$45.00The first monograph on William’s acclaimed, lush explorations of immigrant experience
Published on the occasion of the Haitian-born, Philadelphia-based artist’s largest solo museum exhibition to date, Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè presents an expansive view of William’s (born 1983) career through the lens of race, immigration, and personal and collective memory. Featuring more than 40 full-color images of William’s monumental paintings, lush printmaking practice and a large-scale sculpture commissioned for the exhibition, the book (whose title translates as "we’ve left that all behind"—an oft-cited phrase by Haitian immigrants to the US) blends a recontextualization of the art historical canon with an incisive look at Miami, where William was raised. With work spanning decades, this catalog builds on the foundation already built for this engaging emerging artist.
- Ebony G. Patterson
Ebony G. Patterson
edited by Joanna Groarke, Karenna Gore, Abra Lee & Seph Rodney
$45.00The artist's deceptively beautiful work--colorful tapestries and garden-inspired installations created out of faux flowers, glitter, sequins, fabric, toys, beads, jewelry, and other embellishments--comes to life at The New York Botanical Garden, where she employs the beauty and symbolism of living plants to unearth the complex entanglements of race, gender and colonialism.
Accompanying a major site-specific exhibition of sculptural and horticultural installations by artist Ebony G. Patterson at The New York Botanical Garden, this volume provides deeper insights into Patterson’s multilayered practice. The artist’s work has long examined and experimented with the concept of the garden through a practice that uses beauty as an invitation to confront larger societal questions and concerns. - PRE-ORDER: Eyes That Commit: Black Women and Non-Binary Photographers: A Visual Survey
PRE-ORDER: Eyes That Commit: Black Women and Non-Binary Photographers: A Visual Survey
by Renee Mussai
$50.00PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: February 4, 2025
A major new publication looking at the rich history of photographic practice by Black female and non-binary artists from the late nineteenth century to the present day.
For decades, women have been overlooked in the cultural history of photography, especially Black female and genderfluid artists of African descent whose crucial contributions to this relatively young medium are often missing.
More than just a corrective, this stunning, image-led survey features up to one hundred artists and photographers from diverse cultural backgrounds, geographic locations, and genres. Readers will encounter the works of Florestine Perrault Collins—one of the few African American women working in photography at the beginning of the 20th century—and iconic imagery by pioneering artists such as Ming Smith and Carrie Mae Weems. The book will showcase the potent visual activism of Zanele Muholi, Lola Flash, Vanessa Charlot, Sheela Pree Bright, Rahima Gambo, and Aida Silvestri, as well as a constituency of creative practitioners working with performance and lens-based media such as Ayana V. Jackson, Nona Faustine, Atong Atem, Lebohang Kganye, Heather Agyepong, Silvia Rosi, and many others.
This carefully curated visual survey stands on its own as an impressive collection of portrait, fashion, documentary, critical fine art, and socially engaged global photography. - Pieces Of A Man
Pieces Of A Man
by Jamel Shabazz
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‘Pieces of a Man’ brings together 25 years of street photographs by noted American photographer Jamel Shabazz.“Beginning in Brooklyn’s tight-knit neighborhoods, including his own, Jamel Shabazz captured a true reflection of people of color now revered as a form of social commentary.
His work resonates around the world because it is authentic. He has the authority to speak for us and yet he maintains genuine humility and respect for his people. From the streets of Brooklyn to Europe to Africa, Jamel’s work is inclusive and compassionate without imposing his views on how people should represent themselves. He gives his subjects control over their own image, and in that you see the dignity that he sees in them; turning everyday people into icons. While some celebrate an era or style, Jamel reminds us to celebrate the people, not just the image.”
- Pharrell: Carbon, Pressure & Time: A Book of Jewels
Pharrell: Carbon, Pressure & Time: A Book of Jewels
by Pharrell Williams
$65.00*Ships in 7-10 business days*
With pieces drawn from the extensive personal collection of Pharrell Williams, this is a stunning and unprecedented exploration of the “bling” in hip-hop culture and fashion.
Few recording artists have had a greater hand in incorporating the culture of hip-hop into contemporary luxury than Pharrell Williams. Collaborating with Louis Vuitton nearly two decades ago, Pharrell was the first to have his designs integrated into the haute joaillerie of the great maisons. His innovative team-ups continue through to the present day, most memorably with Tiffany and Chanel, and the watchmaker Richard Mille.
The most extravagant of these chains, rings, and pendants—crafted in precious metals and studded with gems—are as much a part of Pharrell’s musical performance as they are of his personal style. His designs, which include one-off pieces such as solid-gold cases for mobile phones and handheld game consoles, have been legendary for featuring iconography of Pharrell’s own brands, Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream.
This book was originally published with two different colored covers. Customers will be shipped either of the colors at random.
Featured in the book are over 100 pieces, many of which he created in tandem with some of the most recognizable designers in the industry—such as Jacob & Co, Yoon & Verbal, and Lorraine Schwartz. With frequent collaborators such as NIGO® and Tyler the Creator, Pharrell discusses his role in the evolution of hip-hop jewelry, the processes involved in the creation of his one-of-a-kind custom pieces, and the state of connoisseurship in a growing market for the most extravagant of hip-hop collectibles. - Black Is Beautiful: JET Beauties of the Week
Black Is Beautiful: JET Beauties of the Week
by LaMonte McLemore
$55.00Famed 60s sunshine pop band 5th Dimension’s LaMonte McLemore’s additional enduring legacy is that of a photographer, contributing a weekly column “Beauty of the Week” to the renowned publication of African American pop culture, JET. Here, for the first time, is his personal selection of the column’s glory era.
As a founding member and vocalist in the award-winning pop-soul group The 5th Dimension, LaMonte McLemore enjoyed enormous critical and commercial acclaim in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But arguably just as impactful, if not more so, was his career as a photographer cementing Black women and models in American media and cultural history.
McLemore freelanced for JET magazine for more than four decades, principally shooting for its “Beauty of the Week” feature, which encapsulated Black joy, style, and beauty. During this time, he photographed over 500 Black women, most of whom were not professional models. The section, in which a woman was featured in a swimsuit along with her name, place of residence, profession, hobbies, and interests, became one of the most popular among the magazine’s audiences, as it showcased the everyday beauty and elegance of Black women, contributing greatly to what has been called the “first form of social media” by acclaimed contemporary visual artist, Mickalene Thomas. This photographic output serves as a living document of everyday Black fashion and elegance.
Black Is Beautiful: JET Beauties of the Week compiles, for the first time, numerous photographs from McLemore’s “Beauty of the Week” shoots, including never-before-seen outtakes from those sessions. This dynamic coffee table book is a tribute to LaMonte McLemore’s talent and cultural impact, and is a celebration of Black women, Black beauty, and Black culture. - Noah Davis: In Detail
Noah Davis: In Detail
by Noah Davis
$75.00*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*
Designed as a companion to the hugely successful monograph Noah Davis, this volume offers further insight into the impact and legacy of the revolutionary Los Angeles artist and activist.
“Embedding his dreams on canvas and in the community, visionary American artist Noah Davis created a mighty legacy.” — Rachel Willcock, ArtReview (2022)
Looking to literature, film, architecture, and art history, Noah Davis imbued his ethereal paintings with emotion and imagination. Muted colors, fantastic scenes, and blurred subjects create an intoxicating vision. Attuned to the power of his medium, Davis layered his paintings—figuratively and literally—using a unique dry paint application to depict quotidian life at an enigmatic, almost magical remove. Featuring sumptuous close-ups throughout, this important new book brings into focus the rich, painterly variety and luminous detail of Davis’s canvases.
With a special focus on the groundbreaking Underground Museum, which Noah Davis co-founded with his wife, Karon Davis, Noah Davis: In Detail includes a special conversation, moderated by Helen Molesworth, between Fred Moten, Glenn Ligon, Thomas Lax, and Julie Mehretu. This renowned group of artists and thinkers share personal experiences of the powerful and emotional impact of The Underground Museum and its connection to the larger artistic environs of Los Angeles. Franklin Sirmans contributes a new essay and Lindsay Charlwood, a lifelong friend of Noah’s, authors a chronology of his life, contextualizing his artistic and social achievements. - Feenin: R&B Music and the Materiality of BlackFem Voices and Technology
Feenin: R&B Music and the Materiality of BlackFem Voices and Technology
by Alexander Ghedi Weheliye
$27.95Alexander Ghedi Weheliye traces R&B music’s continued relevance for Black life since the late 1970s, showing how it remains a thriving venue for the continued expression of Black thought and life and a primary archive of the contemporary moment.
In Feenin, Alexander Ghedi Weheliye traces R&B music’s continuing centrality in Black life since the late 1970s. Focusing on various musical production and reproduction technologies such as auto-tune and the materiality of the BlackFem singing voice, Weheliye counteracts the widespread popular and scholarly narratives of the genre’s decline and death. He shows how R&B remains a thriving venue for the expression of Black thought and life and a primary archive of the contemporary moment. Among other topics, Weheliye discusses the post-disco evolution of house music in Chicago and techno in Detroit, Prince and David Bowie in relation to the appropriations of Blackness and Euro-whiteness in the 1980s, how the BlackFem voice functions as a repository of Black knowledge, the methods contemporary R&B musicians use to bring attention to Black Lives Matter, and the ways vocal distortion technologies such as the vocoder demonstrate Black music’s relevance to discussions of humanism and posthumanism. Ultimately, Feenin represents Weheliye’s capacious thinking about R&B as the site through which to think through questions of Blackness, technology, history, humanity, community, diaspora, and nationhood. - Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph
Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph
by Deana Lawson
$85.00*ships in 7-10 business days
Deana Lawson is one of the most powerful photographers of her generation. Her subject is black expressive culture and her canvas is the African Diaspora. Over the last ten years, she has created a visionary language to describe black identities, through intimate portraiture and striking accounts of ceremonies and rituals.Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph features forty beautifully reproduced photographs, an essay by the acclaimed writer Zadie Smith, and an extensive interview with the filmmaker Arthur Jafa.
Deana Lawson is one of the most intriguing photographers of her generation. Over the last ten years, she has created a visionary language to describe identities through intimate portraiture and striking accounts of ceremonies and rituals. Using medium- and large-format cameras, Lawson works with models she meets in the United States and on travels in the Caribbean and Africa to construct arresting, highly structured, and deliberately theatrical scenes animated by an exquisite range of color and attention to surprising details: bedding and furniture in domestic interiors or lush plants in Edenic gardens. The body—often nude—is central. Throughout her work, which invites comparison to the photography of Diane Arbus, Jeff Wall, and Carrie Mae Weems, Lawson seeks to portray the personal and the powerful in black life. Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph features forty beautifully reproduced photographs, an essay by the acclaimed writer Zadie Smith, and an expansive conversation with the filmmaker Arthur Jafa. - Ain't But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story
Ain't But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story
edited by Willard Jenkins
Sold outAin’t But a Few of Us presents over two dozen candid dialogues with Black jazz critics and journalists who discuss the barriers to access for Black jazz critics and how they contend with the world of jazz writing dominated by white men.
Despite the fact that most of jazz’s major innovators and performers have been African American, the overwhelming majority of jazz journalists, critics, and authors have been and continue to be white men. No major mainstream jazz publication has ever had a black editor or publisher. Ain’t But a Few of Us presents over two dozen candid dialogues with black jazz critics and journalists ranging from Greg Tate, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Robin D. G. Kelley to Tammy Kernodle, Ron Welburn, and John Murph. They discuss the obstacles to access for black jazz journalists, outline how they contend with the world of jazz writing dominated by white men, and point out that these racial disparities are not confined to jazz but hamper their efforts at writing about other music genres as well. Ain’t But a Few of Us also includes an anthology section, which reprints classic essays and articles from black writers and musicians such as LeRoi Jones, Archie Shepp, A. B. Spellman, and Herbie Nichols.
Contributors
Eric Arnold, Bridget Arnwine, Angelika Beener, Playthell Benjamin, Herb Boyd, Bill Brower, Jo Ann Cheatham, Karen Chilton, Janine Coveney, Marc Crawford, Stanley Crouch, Anthony Dean-Harris, Jordannah Elizabeth, Lofton Emenari III, Bill Francis, Barbara Gardner, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Jim Harrison, Eugene Holley Jr., Haybert Houston, Robin James, Willard Jenkins, Martin Johnson, LeRoi Jones, Robin D. G. Kelley, Tammy Kernodle, Steve Monroe, Rahsaan Clark Morris, John Murph, Herbie Nichols, Don Palmer, Bill Quinn, Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Ron Scott, Gene Seymour, Archie Shepp, Wayne Shorter, A. B. Spellman, Rex Stewart, Greg Tate, Billy Taylor, Greg Thomas, Robin Washington, Ron Welburn, Hollie West, K. Leander Williams, Ron Wynn - The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience since the 1960s
The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience since the 1960s
by Emily J. Lordi
Sold outExamining the work of Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Solange Knowles, Flying Lotus, and others, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding of soul, showing how it came to signify a belief in black resilience enacted through musical practices.
In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was enacted through musical practices—inventive cover versions, falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time, and the leading role played by black women in this musical-intellectual tradition. - The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
by Asma Naeem
Sold outA sweeping survey of hip hop’s resounding impact on contemporary art and culture across the past 20-plus years
Accompanying a groundbreaking exhibition originating at the Baltimore Museum of Art, this book captures the extraordinary influence of hip hop, which has driven innovations in music, visual and performing arts, fashion, and technology and grown into a global phenomenon since its emergence in the 1970s. It features approximately 70 objects by both established and emerging artists, design houses, streetwear icons and musicians working in a wide range of mediums to demonstrate hip hop’s proliferation from the street to the runway, the studio to the museum gallery, and countless sites in between. The exhibition also explores how hip hop has and continues to challenge structures of power, dominant cultural narratives, and political and social systems of oppression.
This fully illustrated monograph documents the exhibition and contains texts and interviews from more than 30 artists and scholars
Artists include: Nina Chanel Abney, Dionne Alexander, Maxwell Alexandre, Devin Allen, Alvaro Barrington, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Wales Bonner, Mark Bradford, Jordan Casteel, Willy Chavarria, Caitlin Cherry, Troy Chew II, William Cordova, Carl Jones, Stan Douglas, John Edmonds, Gajin Fujita, Monica Ikegwu, Shabez Jamal, Kahlil Joseph, Nia June, LA II, Deana Lawson, Eric N. Mack, Emmanuel Massillon, Julie Mehretu, Murjoni Merriweather, Jayson Musson, Rashaad Newsome, Yvonne Osei, Zéh Palito, Gordon Parks, Adam Pendleton, Robert Pruitt, Rammellzee, Sheila Rashid, Rozeal, Joyce J. Scott, Tschabalala Self, Tariku Shiferaw, Devan Shimoyama, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, Abbey Williams, Pharrell Williams and Wilmer Wilson IV.
Authors include: Ebony Haynes, Todd Boyd, Lester Spence, Jordana Moore Saggese, Greg Tate, Misa Hylton, Elena Romero, Ekow Eshun, Devin Allen, Michael Holman, Simone White, Salome Asega, Alphonse Pierre, David A.M. Goldberg and Tahir Hemphill, Jacolby Satterwhite, Wendel Patrick, Simon Reynolds, Seph Rodney, Jesse McCarthy, Danez Smith, Noriko Manabe, Lindsay Knight and Charity Marsh, Shaheem Sanchez, Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr., Sekou Cooke, Jessica N. Pabón-Colón, Martha Cooper, Skeme, Alex de Mora and Lawrence Burney. - Afrofuturisms: Ecology, Humanity, and Francophone Cultural Expressions
Afrofuturisms: Ecology, Humanity, and Francophone Cultural Expressions
by Isaac Vincent Joslin
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An exploration of Francophone African literary imaginations and expressions through the lens of AfrofuturismGenerally attributed to the Western imagination, science fiction is a literary genre that has expressed projected technological progress since the Industrial Revolution. However, certain fantastical elements in African literary expressions lend themselves to science fiction interpretations, both utopian and dystopian. When the concept of science is divorced from its Western, rationalist, materialist, positivist underpinnings, science fiction represents a broad imaginative space that supersedes the limits of this world. Whether it be on the moon, under the sea, or elsewhere within the imaginative universe, Afrofuturist readings of select films, novels, short stories, plays, and poems reveal a similarly emancipatory African future that is firmly rooted in its own cultural mythologies, cosmologies, and philosophies. Isaac Joslin identifies the contours and modalities of a speculative, futurist science fiction rooted in the sociocultural and geopolitical context of continental African imaginaries. Constructing an arc that begins with gender identity and cultural plurality as the bases for an inherently multicultural society, this project traces the essential role of language and narrativity in processing traumas that stem from the violence of colonial and neocolonial interventions in African societies. Joslin then outlines the influential role of discursive media that construct divisions and create illusions about societal success, belonging, and exclusion, while also identifying alternative critical existential mythologies that promote commonality and social solidarity. The trajectory proceeds with a critical analysis of the role of education in affirming collective identity in the era of globalization; the book also assesses the market-driven violence that undermines efforts to instill and promote cultural and social autonomy. Last, this work proposes an egalitarian and ecological ethos of communal engagement with and respect for the diversity of the human and natural worlds. - Why Bushwick Bill Matters
Why Bushwick Bill Matters
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In 1989 the Geto Boys released a blistering track, “Size Ain’t Shit,” that paid tribute to the group’s member Bushwick Bill. Born with dwarfism, Bill was one of the few visibly disabled musicians to achieve widespread fame and one of the even fewer to address disability in a direct, sustained manner. Initially hired as a dancer, Bill became central to the Geto Boys as the Houston crew became one of hip-hop’s most important groups.
Why Bushwick Bill Matters chronicles this crucial artist and explores what he reveals about the relationships among race, sex, and disability in pop music. Charles L. Hughes examines Bill's recordings and videos (both with the Geto Boys and solo), from the horror-comic persona of “Chuckie” to vulnerable verses in songs such as “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” to discuss his portrayals of dwarfism, addiction, and mental illness. Hughes also explores Bill’s importance to his era and to the longer history of disability in music. A complex figure, Bill exposed the truths of a racist and ableist society even as his violent and provocative lyrics put him in the middle of debates over censorship and misogyny. Confrontational and controversial, Bushwick Bill left a massive legacy as he rhymed and swaggered through an often-inaccessible world.
- Why Solange Matters
Why Solange Matters
By Stephanie Phillips
$18.95A Black feminist punk performer and important new voice recounts the dramatic story of an incandescent musician and artist whose unconventional journey to international success on her own terms was far more important than her family name.Growing up in the shadow of her superstar sister, Solange Knowles became a pivotal musician in her own right. Defying an industry that attempted to bend her to its rigid image of a Black woman, Solange continually experimented with her sound and embarked on a metamorphosis in her art that continues to this day.
In Why Solange Matters, Stephanie Phillips chronicles the creative journey of an artist who became a beloved voice for the Black Lives Matter generation. A Black feminist punk musician herself, Phillips addresses not only the unpredictable trajectory of Solange Knowles's career but also how she and other Black women see themselves through the musician's repertoire. First, she traces Solange’s progress through an inflexible industry, charting the artist’s development up to 2016, when the release of her third album, A Seat at the Table, redefined her career. Then, with A Seat at the Table and 2019’s When I Get Home, Phillips describes how Solange embraced activism, anger, Black womanhood, and intergenerational trauma to inform her remarkable art. Why Solange Matters not only cements the place of its subject in the pantheon of world-changing twenty-first century musicians, it introduces its writer as an important new voice.
- Tina Turner: That's My Life: That's My Life
Tina Turner: That's My Life: That's My Life
$65.00*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*
The first authorized pictorial autobiography for the trade by the legendary Tina Turner, containing iconic as well as never-before-seen candid photos, letters, and other personal items of The Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, from her early career to today.
Tina Turner has always been a glorious force to be reckoned with; for more than sixty years, Tina has captivated audiences all over the world. For the first time, Tina has assembled an exceptional collection of images and ephemera to mark her eightieth birthday. Lavishly illustrated, Tina Turner: That's My Life features the work of world-renowned photographers including Peter Lindbergh, Annie Leibovitz, Bruce Weber, Anton Corbijn, Herb Ritts, Andy Warhol, Lord Snowdon, and Paul Cox among others. Also showcased are illustrations by fashion designers who were inspired by Tina, including Christian Louboutin, Antonio, and Bob Mackie.
Additionally, Tina delved into her personal archive, and That's My Life showcases some of Tina's most famous dresses, wigs, and shoes. Comments handwritten by Tina Turner herself are included, and as well as handwritten letters from such friends as Beyoncé, Giorgio Armani, Bryan Adams, Oprah Winfrey, and Mick Jagger and others. Tina Turner: That's My Life is a comprehensive window into the world of Tina Turner, and is the perfect celebration of this storied performer that is sure to wow longtime and new fans alike. - Spoken Word: A Cultural History by Joshua Bennett
Spoken Word: A Cultural History by Joshua Bennett
$30.00A fascinating history of the art form that has transformed the cultural landscape, by one of its influential practitioners, an award-winning poet, professor, and slam champion
In 2009, when he was twenty years old, Joshua Bennett was invited to perform a spoken word poem for Barack and Michelle Obama, at the same White House "Poetry Jam" where Lin-Manuel Miranda declaimed the opening bars of a work-in-progress that would soon revolutionize American theater. That meeting is but one among many in the trajectory of Bennett's young life, as he rode the cresting wave of spoken word through the 2010s. In this book, he goes back to its roots, considering the Black Arts movement and the prominence of poetry and song in Black education; the origins of the famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the Lower East Side living room of the visionary Miguel Algarín, who hosted verse gatherings with legendary figures like Ntozake Shange and Miguel Piñero; the rapid growth of the "slam" format that was pioneered at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago; the perfect storm of spoken word's rise during the explosion of social media; and Bennett's own journey alongside his older sister, whose work to promote the form helped shape spaces online and elsewhere dedicated to literature and the pursuit of human freedom.
A celebration of voices outside the dominant cultural narrative, who boldly embraced an array of styles and forms and redefined what—and whom—the mainstream would include, Bennett's book illuminates the profound influence spoken word has had everywhere melodious words are heard, from Broadway to academia, from the podiums of political protest to cafés, schools, and rooms full of strangers all across the world. - CROWNED: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora
CROWNED: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora
by Kahran Bethencourt & Regis Bethencourt
$35.00From the New York Times bestselling authors of GLORY, Kahran and Regis Bethencourt of CreativeSoul Photography, comes CROWNED, a collection that completely reimagines how we see our favorite and most beloved childhood fairy and folk tales. Filled with the stunning photography that defines CreativeSoul Photography, this collection features classic fairy tales, African and African American folklore, and exciting new classics–brand new stories created by Kahran and Regis.
Included in the collection:
The Poisoned Apple; Asha the Little Cinder Girl; The Little Mermaid; Sleeping Beauty; Hansel and Gretel; Little Red Riding Hood; Anasi and the Three Trials; Aku The Sun Maker; How the Zebra Got His Stripes; The Legend of Princess Yennenga; John Henry, the Steel Driving Man; The Cloud Princess, and more!
This collection is a must-have for children and parents everywhere and is a joyous celebration of Black beauty and imagination. - Welcome 2 Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town
Welcome 2 Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town
by Langston Collin Wilkins
$24.95Langston Collin Wilkins returns to the city where he grew up to illuminate the complex relationship between place, identity, and music in Houston’s hip hop culture. Interviews with local rap artists, producers, and managers inform an exploration of how artists, audiences, music, and place interact to create a heritage that musicians negotiate in a variety of ways. Street-based musicians, avant-garde underground rappers, and Christian artists offer candid views of the scene while Wilkins delves into related aspects like slab, the area’s hip hop-related car culture. What emerges is a portrait of a dynamic reciprocal process where an artist, having identified with and embodied a social space, reproduces that space in a performance even as the performance reconstructs the social space.
A vivid journey through a southern hip hop bastion, Welcome 2 Houston offers readers an inside look at a unique musical culture.
- Voguing and the Ballroom Scene of New York 1989-92: Photographs
Voguing and the Ballroom Scene of New York 1989-92: Photographs
by Chantal Regnault
Sold outHarlem’s gay ball subculture of the late 1980s is superbly documented in this trove of previously unseen photographs.
In 1989, Malcolm McLaren had his only number one hit with a single called "Deep in Vogue." Early the next year, Madonna had one of the biggest hits of her career, with the single "Vogue," and when Jennie Livingston's film Paris Is Burning arrived in cinemas the same year, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the mainstream got hip to New York City's extraordinary ball culture, from which the film and McLaren and Madonna's songs had arisen. Paris Is Burning documented a gay ballroom scene that emerged in Harlem in the mid-1980s, which drew African American and Latino gay and transgender communities to compete against one another for their dancing skills, the verisimilitude of their drag and their ability to walk on the runway. Photographer Chantal Regnault spent many years recording this scene, from which the dance style known as voguing arose. A visual riot of fashion, polysexuality and subversive style, Voguing and the Ballroom Scene of New York 1989–1992 is also an extraordinary document on sexuality and race. The wild years of voguing are vividly captured in hundreds of Regnault's amazing, previously unpublished photographs. The book also features interviews with key figures from the movement, essays, flyers and ephemera.
Photographer and documentarist Chantal Regnault was born in France. She left Paris after the 1968 uprisings and lived in New York for the next 15 years. At the end of the 1980s she became immersed in Harlem's voguing scene. Also around this time, Regnault developed an interest in Haitian voodoo culture and began to divide her time between Haiti and New York. Her widely published photographs have appeared in major magazines and newspapers, including Vanity Fair and the New York Times. - Spike Lee: Director’s Inspiration
Spike Lee: Director’s Inspiration
Sold outAn inspirational trove of film posters and ephemera, photographs, artwork and more from the collection of Spike Lee
For nearly four decades, Spike Lee has made movies that demand our attention. His extensive filmography reflects an unflinching critique of race relations in the United States, from the Student Academy Award®–winning short Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads and the ever-relevant Do the Right Thing to the more recent Oscar®-winning BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods. A lifelong cinephile and film scholar, Lee draws inspiration from other artists working across a range of eras, genres and global cinemas. He has also devoted much of his career to teaching the next generation of filmmakers.
Spike Lee: Director’s Inspiration presents Lee’s personal collection of original film posters and objects, photographs, artworks and more—many of these inscribed to Lee personally by filmmakers, stars, athletes, activists, musicians and others who have inspired his work in specific ways.
Straight from the walls of Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule production studio in Brooklyn, his faculty office at NYU and his Martha’s Vineyard home, these objects offer a glimpse into what shapes Lee’s signature filmmaking approach. Spike Lee: Director’s Inspiration also includes a conversation between Lee and Shaka King (Judas and the Black Messiah) and brief texts by some of the many artists Lee himself has inspired.
Spike Lee (born 1957) is a director, writer, actor, producer, author and artistic director of the graduate film program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he has taught since 1993. - Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971
Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971
edited by Doris Berger, Rhea L. Combs, & Whoopi Goldberg
$49.95The overlooked yet vibrant history of Black participation in American film, from the beginning of cinema through the civil rights movement
From the dawn of the medium onward, Black filmmakers have helped define American cinema. Black performers, producers and directors—Bert Williams, Oscar Micheaux, Herb Jeffries, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee and William Greaves, to name just a few—had a vast and resounding impact. Black film artists not only developed an enduring independent tradition but also transformed mainstream Hollywood, fueled and reflected sociopolitical movements, captured Black experience in all its robust complexity, and influenced generations to come. As harrowing as it is beautiful, this history of Black cinema and its legacy is often overlooked.
Regeneration accompanies a first-of-its-kind exhibition at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures exploring seven decades of Black participation in American cinema. Amplifying this underrepresented history in colorful and striking detail, the book features an in-depth curatorial essay and scholarly case-study texts on topics such as early Black independent filmmaking, Black spectatorship during the Jim Crow era and home movies as an essential form of Black self-representation. The volume also makes meaningful connections to the present through interviews with award-winning contemporary Black filmmakers Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins and Dawn Porter. An extensive filmography and chronology offer an essential resource for anyone interested in Black cinema, while images of contemporary visual artworks further illustrate the volume throughout. - Eric Hart Jr.: When I Think about Power
Eric Hart Jr.: When I Think about Power
by Eric Hart Jr
$55.00Sumptuous and tender portraits of an empowered Black queer experience
Eric Hart Jr.’s black-and-white photo series presents more than 70 portraits focusing on the notion of power as it relates to the Black queer experience. Begun in 2019, When I Think About Power investigates and expands the contemporary reimagining of men through themed chapters. “I'm fascinated with the intersectionality and the layers of what it means to be Black in the modern day,” he has said. “From masculinity, queerness, to dress, I strive to utilize image-making in a way that displays people like myself in all of their power and all of their beauty.” Hart's approach stems from his own journey toward self-acceptance growing up in Macon, Georgia. By visually exploring the differences and similarities between himself and the men who surround him, studying the words of Black queer icons and researching the visibility of power in eras such as the Ming dynasty or ancient Egypt, Hart has created an iconography of a power that so many queer individuals seek.
The work of Brooklyn-based photographer Eric Hart Jr. (born 1999) has been published in Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, the New York Times and i-D magazine, and has been praised by artists such as Beyoncé and Spike Lee. Hart is a two-time Gordon Parks scholar, a 2022 Forbes 30 under 30 Art & Style choice, and in 2020 was named one of Men's Health magazine's “20-year-old mavericks changing America.”
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