New Books in Art

Hidden Mother by Laura Larson was published by Saint Lucy Press (January 2017), with 96 pages and 26 Color and black and white images. Hidden Mother tells the story of the adoption of Larson’s daughter from Ethiopia as mapped through nineteenth-century hidden mother photographs. The term “hidden mother” refers to the widespread but little-known practice in 19th-century portrait photography of concealing a mother’s body as she supported and calmed her child during the lengthy exposures demanded by early photographic technology. In the final portrait of the child, the mother–often covered from head-to-toe in a black drop cloth–appears as an uncanny figure. A practical strategy deployed by the photographer unintentionally yielded an evocative representation of the mother; never meant to be seen, her presence nonetheless haunts these images. Part photography book, part essay, Hidden Mother enlists these strange and powerful images to present a lyrical account of becoming a mother through adoption. Laura Larson is a photographer who has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, including Art in General, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, SFCamerawork, Susanne Vielmetter/L.A. Projects, and Wexner Center for the Arts. Reviews of her exhibitions have appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Time Out New York, and she has published artist projects in Cabinet, Documents, Open City and The Literary Review. She is the recipient of grants from Art Matters, Inc., New York Foundation of the Arts, and Ohio Arts Council, and of residency fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Ucross Foundation. Larson’s work is represented by Lennon, Weinberg Gallery in New York City. She earned a BA in English from Oberlin College, a MFA in Visual Art from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. Hidden Mother is available online at the Saint Lucy bookstore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Dance & Politics: Moving Beyond Boundaries (Manchester University Press, 2017) by Dana Mills, considers dance as a political expression from a number of perspectives, situating the analysis within a framework of contemporary political theory. Mills notes that dance has always been with us, as humans, but that we do not usually think about it as part of our political discourse in the same way that other performative or artistic expressions are integrated into political discussions and political life. Mills’ book argues that dance, as a language or means of communication, should be considered from the dancers’ perspective but also from the audience or the receivers’ experience and understanding, as well as the choreographers’ point of view, and the interactions of the other dancers involved. Mills digs into the overarching question of how can we expand our notion of what is political so that dance is included, trying to also understand why it has often been excluded from the notion of the political. The book elaborates on how and why dance is political, how dance can give voice to subversive discourse, how it can articulate feminist perspectives, and how it can provide opportunity and outlet for those marginalized within society and politics. The scope of the book is global–integrating not only the groundbreaking work of Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham as the building blocks for thinking about dance and politics–but exploring the Gumboots dance and development in South Africa; the One Billion Rising concept and diffusion to western countries, and non-western appropriation of the movement; and the integration of dance into human rights advocacy in Israel and in Palestine. The book concludes with another example of the role of dance within yet another community, the Native American communities in North America. Throughout the book, Mills teases apart the issues of the body as a political entity, while also exploring the conceptual notion of political space where dance is performed, and how the body is part of an understanding of political space. These questions are vital to consider in context of contemporary political theory and what we understand to be political discourse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

When the Sun comes back And the first quail calls Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd. For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom If you follow the Drinkin’ Gourd. -“Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd” author unknown (possibly Peg Leg Joe) They left in the middle of the night, often carrying little more than the knowledge to follow the North Star. Between 1830 and the end of the Civil War in 1865, an estimated one hundred thousand slaves became passengers on the Underground Railroad, a journey of untold hardship, in search of freedom. Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad (Princeton Architectural Press, 2017) presents a remarkable series of images following a route from the cotton plantations of central Louisiana, through the cypress swamps of Mississippi and the plains of Indiana, north to the Canadian border a path of nearly fourteen hundred miles. The culmination of a ten-year research quest, Through Darkness to Light imagines a journey along the Underground Railroad as it might have appeared to any freedom seeker. A person who explores her photography in this work may get the feeling they were actually there during this tumultuous time in American history. Framing the powerful visual narrative is an introduction by the author; a foreword by noted politician, pastor, and civil rights activist Andrew J. Young; and essays by noted historian Fergus M. Bordewich, journalism professor Robert F. Darden, and black studies scholar Eric R. Jackson. Author Jeanine Michna-Bales is a Dallas-based photographer. Her work explores the relationships between what has occurred, or is occurring, in a society and how people react to those events. She meticulously researches each topic considering different viewpoints, causes, and effects and political climates and often incorporates found or archival text and audio into her projects. Images from her Underground Railroad series have been exhibited throughout the United States and have appeared in numerous online and print publications. Her next book-length work will focus on the images and architecture of Cold War era nuclear fallout shelters in the United States. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

No Plan B by David J. Carol was published by Peanut Press Books in 2017. The book is a retrospective of David’s work with 32 black and white images and an afterward by photojournalist Jason Eskenazi. No Plan B is a David’s fifth book and is a culmination of images from David’s road trips from the Arctic Ocean to post-Soviet Russia, from the Mojave Desert to the streets of Istanbul taken between 1993 and 2016. David was born in New York City, and attended the School of Visual Arts and The New School for Social Research, where he studied under Lisette Model. He was the first assignment photographer for The Image Bank photo agency (now part of Getty Images) at the age of 26. David has traveled the world taking pictures for himself and others for over thirty years. David is a photographer first and foremost, he has most recently worked daily in the real world of commercial photography as the Director of Photography at Outfront Media (formerly CBS Outdoor). Currently he is Editor-in-Chief at Peanut Press Books, a new imprint that publishes high quality photography books. He is a contributing writer for Rangefinder Magazine and Photo District News, is a judge for the prestigious PDN Photo Annual, and reviews the work of developing photographers at Palm Springs Photo Festival, ASMP Fine Art, APA, Filter Photo Festival and at Savannah College of Art and Design. In his work as a curator, he has shaped shows at The Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, Darkroom Gallery in Vermont, and Lightbox Gallery in Oregon. He also serves on the Board of Advisers for the Center for Alternative Photography: Penumbra Foundation. No Plan B is available in two bindings; the black trade edition, and a white limited edition, which includes a gelatin silver print signed and numbered by the artist. No Plan B is available for sale online at Peanut Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Author Gillian McIver discusses the fusion of art history and filmmaking in her book, exploring the deep connection between painting and cinema. She delves into how Baroque art influences filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, and the use of visual storytelling techniques from art history in films. The podcast also touches on the representation of history in cinema and painting, hinting at upcoming projects on the subject.

The legendary band leader Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on Earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the “Arkestra,” Sun Ra took jazz from the inner city to outer space, infusing traditional swing with far-out harmonies, rhythms, and sounds. Described as the father of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra created “space music” as a means of building a better future for American blacks here on earth. A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (University of Texas Press, 2016) offers a spirited introduction to the life and works of this legendary but underappreciated musician, composer, and poet. The book explores and assesses Sun R’as wide-ranging creative output–music, public preaching, graphic design, film and stage performance, and poetry–and connects his diverse undertakings to the culture and politics of his times, including the space race, the rise of technocracy, the civil rights movement, and even space-age bachelor-pad music. By thoroughly examining the astro-black mythology that Sun Ra espoused, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism masterfully demonstrates that he offered both a holistic response to a planet desperately in need of new visions and vibrations and a new kind of political activism that used popular culture to advance social change. In a nation obsessed with space and confused about race, Sun Ra aimed not just at assimilation for the socially disfranchised but even more at a wholesale transformation of American society and a more creative, egalitarian world. Author Paul Youngquist teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a professor in the English Department and associate chair of Graduate Studies. His current areas of research focus are British literature, cultural studies, literacy theory, popular culture, film/digital media, and Romanticism. He is the author or editor of six books, including Cyberfiction: After the Future, Monstrosities: Bodies and British Romanticism, and Race, Romanticism, and the Atlantic. Dr. Youngquist now devotes much of his energy to studying the histories written and oral of resistance and creativity in the Caribbean. James Stancil is an independent scholar, freelance journalist, and the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area non-profit dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

In Asking the Audience: Participatory Art in 1980s New York (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) Adair Rounthwaite examines the roles of artist, audience and institutional context in the rise of new forms of live art during the Reagan years. The book focuses upon live art projects sponsored by the Dia Foundation involving a variety of practices from installation to Town Hall meetings and other participatory forms. Rounthwaite synthesizes diverse archival materials in order to develop a richly textured study that recovers the complexities of projects committed to fostering audience agency in the consumption of contemporary art. Kirstin L. Ellsworth has a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University (2005) and currently is an Assistant Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hills. Email: kellsworth@csudh.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

George White, President and COO of Up With Paper and Jumping Jack Press interviewed following the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, discusses the intricacies of creating pop-up art for greeting cards and for books. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’salso a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Black is the Day, Black is the Night by Amy Elkins is self-published (2016), with an essay by Gregory J. Harris and C.F., unpaged, 80 color and black-and-white illustrations. Black is the Day, Black is the Night started as an exploration into, what author and photographer has called, “extreme manifestations of masculinity,” but over time it evolved into a meditation on time and memory through personal correspondence with men serving life and death row sentences in some of the most maximum security prisons in the U.S., all of whom had served between 13-26 years at point of contact in 2009 when the project started. “Out of our letters a collaboration unfolded. I constructed images using formulas specific to each of their stories, age and years incarcerated. Through these formulas their portraits became more unrecognizable and their memories became more muddled, regurgitated and fictional with the endless passing years of their sentence. Stripped of personal context and placed in solitary cells, their sense of identity, memory and time couldn’t help but mutate. I sent these images to them, they would critique them. This went on for years. Of the seven men I originally wrote, I remain in touch with one who has been in solitary confinement since 1995 for a crime committed at 16. One was released in 2010 at the age of 30 (after 15 years in prison), three eventually opted out, one was executed in 2009, another executed in 2012.” – Amy Elkins via LensCulture The title of the book comes from poem excerpts written by a man who has been in prison since the age of 13. He was retried as an adult at 16 for attempting escape and was sentenced to life in solitary without the possibility of parole at a super-max prison. He taught himself to write poetry over this time. Amy received her BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Elkins has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; North Carolina Museum of Art; Light Work Gallery, Syracuse, New York; and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, among many others. Her work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Eyemazing, PDN, Harpers, NY Arts, Conveyor, and Contact Sheet, among others. Elkins has also been included in exhibition catalogues such as The Portrait. Elkins was an artist-in-residence at Light Work in 2011, and at Villa Waldberta, Munich, in 2012. In 2008, Elkins and Cara Phillips cofounded wipnyc.org, a platform for showcasing both established and emerging women in photography. Elkins is represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York. Amy Elkins is currently based near Los Angeles. Black is the Day, Black is the Night is available through her website: http://www.amyelkins.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Matteo Faglia, discusses the 2017 Bologna Book Fair exhibition, “Pop-up Show: The Magic Inside Books,” which traces some of the important milestones in the story of 3-dimensional, or as they have been called since the 1930s, pop-up books. The exhibition showcases the extensive collection of Artist and Collector Massimo Missiroli. Starting with texts published in the 1800s to books created in the 1970s the exhibition, which Faglia plans to tour – features works by great maestros of printing, such as Ernest Nister and Raphael Tuck and Sons as well as the first book to be called a pop-up, Harold Lenz’s Blue Ribbon Press book, Pinocchio. The exhibition, which is featured on www.popupshow.net, was co-curated by Matteo Faglia and Massimo Missiroli. Matteo Faglia, is head of Consulenze Editoriali, and has worked for some of Italy’s most prominent publishers, including De Agostini. Here, we discuss why pop-ups have been a special part of the children’s books industry and what it takes to become a pop-up artist or paper engineer. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Children’sBook Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’s also a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art