Book Reports

The Story of The Face is an inspiring retrospective of one of the most influential publications of the 1980s and 1990s. The Face—once dubbed “the almanac of cool”— propelled the careers of artists, designers, stylists, photographers, and musicians once on the fringe, such as Boy George, Sade, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, and Nick Knight.

This book—with rich photographs and compelling essays—highlights Albers’ relationship with pre-Columbian architecture, geometry, and color during a little-known period in his career. This book is published in tandem with this year’s well received Josef Albers in Mexico exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Generally, a graffiti artist hones in on the same letters of his or her tag over and over again—kind of like a logo—so it’s remarkable that fellow street artist Claudia Walde, a.k.a. MadC, was able to collect entire alphabets from more than 150 artists from thirty countries for Graffiti  Alphabets. The results from a simple set of instructions (design all twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet to fit on one piece of paper) are nothing less than energizing for both the seasoned art director and the burgeoning tagger.

Neatly organized and a pleasure to peruse, this book showcases the work of more than eighty artists working in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latino communities in the United States. In addition to stunning photography, there are essays critiquing the medium as well as exploring the relationships between participation and visibility.

This monograph is the first comprehensive study of Jasper Johns’ work since 1980. Johns—who will be eighty-eight in May—has created some of his most complex work since then. The author explores the period in the context of artists such as Cézanne and Picasso, and through interviews with Johns himself.