WHAT NERVE!! Hairy Who @ Matthew Marks Gallery

I rarely post my enthusiasm for a local gallery show, however the exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea is a must see! What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art featuring the Chicago artist collective Hairy Who. A few photos from the show which closes August 14th.

click any image to enlarge

From the gallery website contents of one of the books published for the exhibition The Collected Hairy Who Publications 1966-1969 reproducing in actual size, every page of the Hairy Who "comic book" publications.

 

vasta@earthlink.net

PARIS La Galcante Vintage Magazines & Newspapers

In the never ending stories posted on the web from around the world of bookstores closing there remains in Paris a refuge, a "non-book store", filled with magazines, newspapers, photographs and ephemera, La Galcante. The shop is located on the right bank between what used to be the Samaritaine department store and Les Halles on the rue de l'Arbre Sec.

click any image to enlarge

 

Sidebar note: the story in the press June 15th of the fermeture definitive of the much loved La Hune book store located on the square St.German. After rescue a number of years ago, from their iconic corner spot on the blvd St.Germain, opposite Cafe de Flore, the store was overcome by unsustainable financial pressure. 

Will the space revert back to a Christian Dior boutique?, which itself replaced another venerable bookstore on that corner, Le Divan, the self proclaimed "... bookshop for people who read". 

 ~

I first walked into La Galcante thirty years ago when it was across the street, housed in a smallish storefront with most of its inventory hidden below ground in chalky, dirty, odious caves. It was there a couple of years later, after having discovered VU magazine (Life magazine's inspiration) at the Paris paper show, that I was lead deep into the recesses of one of the caves and deposited at a huge pile "...here is our inventory of VU, take what you want, keep them in order and shut out the lights along the route on your way out." I bought many VU magazines that day, including incredible special issues, a feat which I could never repeat.

   

~

 What appears to be stepping back in time, photos of the shop 2015 ...

 Large main room with skylights

Not books but bound volumes of periodicals!

vasta@earthlink.net

PARIS Bievre Photo Fair 2015

After Berlin, back to Paris for two outdoor fairs. On Saturday I was off to Bievre, a small town about 30 minutes outside Paris, for the fabled camera and image show. It was another beautiful day filled with photographs, cameras, accessories, magic lanterns and "photo-furniture". Link to last years post with details about the history of the fair.

click any image to enlarge

vasta@earthlink.net

PARIS Outdoor Fair: San Sulpice Antiquarian Books

After Berlin, back to Paris for two outdoor fairs taking place during the beautiful spring weather. Starting late in the week, the San Sulpice Antiquarian Book Fair and running simultaneously that same weekend, the Bievre photo fair (see next post).

The San Sulpice photo (above) is from last year as I totally spaced out and forgot to take photos. Weather was beautiful, even too warm the first day with the sun reflecting off the white tents making for unseasonal discomfort. Nonetheless, there were great books and ephemera to be found scattered throughout the fair and I'm happy to have come away with three books which I have not owned in many years that I will add to my personal library ... 

click any image to enlarge

... Quiet Days In Clichy Henry Miller with photographs by Brassai. Paris, Olympia Press, 1958. The first edition, distinctive with the photographs printed in sepia-toned gravure. Miller's tales of prostitutes and poverty while living in the underbelly of place Clichy.

Die Puppe Hans Bellmer. Berlin, Gerhardt Verlag 1962. Bringing together all the photographs originally published in Bellmer's legendary surreal "doll" books, the first published in 1934 and second in 1949. Both books were published with original photographs tipped-in, the second, Jeux de la Puppe with images hand-tinted by Bellmer.

La Famille Quartre Cent Coups Une Historie pour les enfants pour les Parents (s'ils sont sages) Racontee et Illustree de Collages par Claude Roy. A surreal children's book with collaged images by Claude Roy published in 1954 by Paul Dupont. Marvelous devise using red, transparent paper adding and subtracting from the images on the facing pages!

See the next post for Bievre...

vasta@earthlink.net

BERLIN Books & Postcards = Friends & Colleagues

Berlin for me is synonymous with art, creativity, a vibrant gallery scene, book stores and lots of street art, graffiti, paste-ups and stencils. First stop: visit Anna and Christian, the amazing, silk-screen printing couple behind Re:Surgo! at their gallery on Tor Strasse. It was great to see them and I'm very pleased they gave me the opportunity to buy some of their out-of-print editions which you will be able to purchase at my stand at the PS1 Art Book Fair in the fall!

  

click any image to enlarge

Photos of the gallery ...

Anna and Christian

 First pass of David Sandlin's new book on the drying rack. 

I will have copies for sale at PS1 in September.

A unique experience in all my years in the trade was to become friends with a dealer and his whole family! Such is my enduring relationship with the Krauses. I'm pictured here with Jurgen and his son Florian. Jurgen and his wife Christina have recently retired from the postcard trade, nonetheless when I got to their house, Jurgen wanted to know "... do you want to look at some postcards I set aside for you before we go to dinner?" "Ja...bitte!"

A favorite spot in Berlin is the court yard of the one of the Hackescher Hof buildings in East Berlin (Rosenthaler Strasse) that is completely covered with all types of street art ...

vasta@earthlink.net