Publications

Issue #2 from Platypus Publication Salty: A Cookbook / Journal Double-covered issue, with red and blue sidesPLATYPUS is an independent, print publication recognising unseen Australian icons hiding at the intersection of land and culture in this Anthropocene. It is not afraid to express ideas through casual poetry, semi-political, visual jest and bold gestures.

Over the past decade, Canadian-born, Paris-based artist Kapwani Kiwanga (born 1978) has created complex installations, sculptures, performance lectures and films that consider marginalized histories and colonial economies. Drawing from her training in anthropology and the social sciences, Kiwanga's ethereal environments bring attention to the backstories of systems of authority and their embodied effects.Accompanying the exhibition at the New Museum, this catalog provides one of the most complete overviews of Kiwanga's work in sculpture and installation. Inspired by the early 18th-century New York legal codes known as "lantern laws"--ordinances that required all Black, Indigenous or mixed-race individuals over 14 to carry lanterns or lit candles after dark if not accompanied by a white person--her new commission for the New Museum weaves together different layers of opacity and transparency through the use of large-scale curtains and mirrored surfaces, playing with natural light and darkness.

'Cut Papers' features some of the artist’s most whimsical and intriguing works made on paper and in paper, alongside a select group of sculptures in metal, wood and ceramic. The first publication to focus solely on Picasso’s cut papers, this book features many works reproduced for the first time with newly commissioned photography, alongside new scholarship on a little-known aspect of one of the 20th century’s most pivotal practices.Although Picasso rarely sold or exhibited his cut papers (or papiers découpés) during his lifetime, he signed, dated and archived them just as he did all his works. They were simply part of a more private studio practice, often made for family or as models for his fabricators.Also featured is a photo section that surveys Picasso’s engagement with cut paper and sculpture over the decades and documents his practice of cutting paper, both in and out of the studio.256 pages150 colour illustrations25 x 22 cm.DelMonico Books/Hammer Museum

This authoritative Virgil Abloh compendium, created by the designer himself, accompanies his acclaimed landmark 2019–23 touring exhibition and offers an in-depth analysis of his career and his inspirations. More than a catalogue, 'Figures of Speech' is a 500-page user’s manual to Abloh's genre-bending work in art, fashion and design.The first section features essays and an interview that examine Abloh’s oeuvre through the lenses of contemporary art history, architecture, streetwear, high fashion and race, to provide insight into a prolific and impactful career that cuts across mediums, connecting visual artists, musicians, graphic designers, fashion designers, major brands and architects. The book also contains a massive archive of images culled from Abloh’s personal files on major projects, revealing behind-the-scenes snapshots, prototypes, inspirations and more―accompanied by intimate commentary from the artist. Finally, a gorgeous full-color plate section offers a detailed view of Abloh’s work across disciplines.Virgil Abloh (1980–2021) was a fashion designer and entrepreneur, and the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's men's wear collection from 2018 to 2021. He was also CEO of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house he founded in 2013. Born in Rockford, Illinois, to Ghanaian parents, he entered the world of fashion with an internship at Fendi in 2009 alongside rapper Kanye West. The two began an artistic collaboration that would launch Abloh's career with the founding of Off-White. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.

Surveying 30 years of Henry Taylor’s work in painting, sculpture and installation, this comprehensive monograph celebrates a Los Angeles artist widely appreciated for his unique aesthetic, social vision and freewheeling experimentation. Taken together, the various strands of Taylor’s practice display a deep observation of Black life in America at the turn of the century, while also inviting a humanist fellowship that pushes outward from the particular.Taylor’s portraits and allegorical tableaux – populated by friends, family members, strangers on the street, athletic stars and entertainers – display flashes of familiarity in their seemingly brash compositions, which nonetheless linger in the imagination with uncanny detail. In his paintings on cigarette packs, cereal boxes and other found supports, Taylor brings his primary medium into the realm of common culture. Similarly, the artist’s installations often recode the forms and symbolisms of found materials (bleach bottles, push brooms) to play upon art historical tropes and modernism’s appropriations of African or African American culture.240 pages191 colour illustrations28 x 23 cmManic Books

Following on from his epic 2016 book for Perimeter Editions, S-O-M-E-O-N-E, Laith McGregor’s latest publication forges a somewhat unlikely dialogue between the artist’s often divergent processes and aesthetic outcomes. Drawing on two very different but interlinked bodies of work – McGregor’s long-running Island Drawings and more recent Island Collages – the book juxtaposes the Australian artist’s meticulously rendered, monochromatic drawings with his spontaneous, colour-rich and playfully formal collages.Archipelago skirts a line between artist book and monograph, wrangling McGregor’s works in a loose, intuitive fashion, all the while affording them the critical attention they demand. Featuring an incisive text by prominent Brisbane-based curator and writer Hamish Sawyer, the book sees McGregor continue his at once lively, conceptual, idiosyncratic and methodical explorations of a wider premise that broaches travel, diarism, exoticism, representations of the Pacific and expanded notions of the portrait.Like much of McGregor’s work, Archipelago feels measured and precise one moment, easy and breezy the next.72 pages32 x 24 cmSection-sewn hardcoverPerimeter Editions (Naarm).

Bauhaus and Documenta are two globally successful cultural brands, representing a modern Germany that is both cosmopolitan and innovative. They both came into being at a time when civilisation was in a state of collapse, and they both exemplify the idea of the liberating power of art and culture. Looking at them in parallel brings out their similarities and differences and reveals that to some extent they serve to complement one another: for the one, the focus is on mass-produced articles and their everyday usage; the idea of universalism; and the design of consumer goods; for the other, encounters with unique artworks; the experience of diversity; and the critiquing of capitalist consumerism. In a series of critical essays, bolstered by a selection of original material, the publication examines fundamental, yet frequently overlooked aspects of the two cultural brands, whose profile is now once again a controversial subject of debate.304 pages23.7 x 32.4 cmHardcoverSpector Books (Leipzig).

Dane Lovett’s flower paintings both embrace and eschew their historical, thematic and allegorical roots. Dark, often monochromatic and subtly tonal in their palette, the scores of works that populate the Melbourne-based artist’s debut book 'Flowers' gestures towards the syntaxes of minimalism and seriality as resolutely as they do the still life. Where earlier works saw the artist construct still life arrangements from indoor plants and pop-cultural ephemera (VHS cassettes, vinyl records, CDs, ageing tech and the like) Lovett’s recent practice has seen him embrace repetition and delicate variation, with an unmistakably reductionist and art historical bent. Here, he recasts French artist Henri Fantin-Latour’s 1864 still life Flowers: Tulips, Camellias, Hyacinths in countless murky, monochromatic iterations – a single vase of flowers becoming a site for sustained painterly exploration, variation and rhythm. Extended series of foxgloves and waterlilies in various unnatural tones follow.As the curator and academic Rosemary Forde writes in her essay for the book, Lovett’s repetitions ‘each seem to emote uniquely’, his dark and muddy images allowing us to project ‘our own familiar scenes, moments, memories, aspirations, sorrows’. 104 pages29 x 22cmSection-sewn perfect bindSoftcoverPerimeter Editions (Naarm).

'Installation View: Photography Exhibitions in Australia (1848-2020)' offers a significant new account of photography in Australia, told through its most important exhibitions and modes of collection and display. From colonial records to contemporary art, the book presents a chronology of rarely-seen installation views from both well-known and forgotten exhibitions, along with a series of essays that tell the story of the individuals and institutions that have proved intrinsic to the public circulation of photographs. At once specific and widely contextual in its scope, this long-term research project from two of Australia’s leading academics and educators in the field enriches our understanding of the diversity of Australian photography by looking at what lies beyond the frame. Installation View speaks not only to pictures but to the people and the places that nurture them.424 pages with 16-page insert15.4 x 23 cm,Section-sewn hardcoverPerimeter Editions (Naarm).

This book brings together ideas and projects that seek to define a new role for design based on empathy. As a mediator of emotions and feelings, design is presented here as a practice that takes care as its main purpose. Designers adopt sensitive, diplomatic, and sometimes therapeutic functions, with the aim of connecting us with one another but also with the world around us, with other species, with soil, water and even the universe. In this book, the reader will find new ideas, and utopian propositions but also practical solutions for reinterpreting and reconnecting with the world around them. Taking food as a key medium of encounter, both between people and also with the more than human world, the designers featured in this book consciously operate in a multi-scalar realm – from the invisible microbial life that lives in our gut to the vast landscapes transformed by agricultural practices. Designs for more than one are those that take into consideration not just their immediate user or client but the many constituents inevitably impacted by any new object or action.408 pages16.5 x 24 cm,SoftcoverOnomatopee (Eindhoven).

With the End in Mind is a hybrid catalogue/artist’s book published in conjunction with the namesake solo exhibition by Reginald Sylvester II presented at Maximillian William, London during the summer of 2021. The artworks which form With the End in Mind demonstrate the artist’s interest in abstraction as a tool of resistance and a form that can represent Black resilience. They also mark a shift from flat abstract painting to more tactile works which incorporate three dimensional elements. The book invites the reader into Sylvester’s creative process. The works are nestled within a cyclical flow of the artist’s mantras, which give insight into the spiritual and conceptual underpinning of the resulting artworks. Also featuring a text by Allie Biswas contextualising the artist’s use of Ready-mades within a history of Black American artists transforming manufactured objects into art with a political consciousness.84 pages22 x 24cmHardcoverInOtherWords (London).

A spectacle, a theatre, a multi-dimensional document. An effort to merge language and formlessness in a yearning for a cyclic work. A stage for these merges to play out. A reminder that when we grow we don’t only grow upwards. The already porous membrane seemingly separating dark from light, pain from joy, and active from passive becomes intensely insignificant when we occasionally get a chance to observe ourselves from the other side of the mirror. The Archive of Dark is a book project acting as an epilogue to a body of work investigating darkness that included two separate yet coherent exhibitions; Influenza, Theatre of Glowing Darkness, 2017 and Renaissance of the Night, 2018. The book weaves together a dense collection of historic imagery into an organic and emotive narrative. It features a series of letters from a variety of contributors that include perceptual, intellectual, spiritual, scientific and artistic reflections.The book is case-bound with a linen cloth and has four cover variations, each with a different combination of plate-sunk images.304 pages21.5 x 30cmHardcoverInOtherWords (London).

With this book, we begin with an understanding of the importance of landscape. In doing so we seek to uncover some of the reasons why plants and landscapes are seemingly undervalued in the development paradigm. We seek to highlight their value, far beyond beautification and came up with ways to disrupt the status quo.Landscape as Protagonist presents findings, essays and interviews that imagine landscape as the place to begin a built project, not a way to finish it. The book’s content is informed by a diverse group of people including landscape architects, architects, gardeners, Indigenous knowledge-holders, horticulturalists, property developers, writers, researchers and artists; addressing the problematic realities of trying to deliver meaningful landscapes in an urban setting.Landscape as Protagonist includes Interviews with Thomas Doxiadis of internationally recognised architect and landscape architecture studio, doxiadis+; artist and architect Marjetica Potrč whose work focuses on community-based projects that demonstrate a concern for sustainability and participatory design; and acclaimed landscape designer, gardener and journalist, Dan Pearson. The publication also features essays by Bruce Pasoe, historian, researcher and author of the pivotal Dark Emu; Cameron Allan McKean, journalist, editor and writer; Katherine Sundermann, associate director at Melbourne- based architecture and urban design practice MGS Architects; Andrew Reynolds, landscape architect and urbanist; and Tanya Patrick, editor and writer specialising in science communication.156 pages15 x 22 cmSoftcoverMolonglo (Naarm/Ngunnawal Country).

SPECIAL EDITIONPerimeter Editions and Lenard Smith have produced a special edition of 25 copies of 'Melancholy Objects'.It’s no mistake that Lenard Smith’s new book borrows its title from Susan Sontag’s 1977 essay of the same name. Melancholy Objects – the Los Angeles-based Artist grounds the photographic endeavour in the surreal, the introspective, and the referential. Working in the tradition of the ragpicker, Smith sifts through personal and found objects to create formal compositions that gently intersect sculpture with the still life - broaching new purposes and hierarchies, and pulsing with a sense of humour, play, and solemnity.Unlikely materials and choreographies elicit a furrow or a smirk. While history and function inspire each photograph, it is the imagination that subverts and ungrounds them. In the spirit of Dadaism, we’re left happily adrift in their presence.110 pages21 x 12.5 cmSoftcover Perimeter Editions

For 18 months, Alec Von Bargen travelled to 23 "Médecins Sans Frontières" (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) missions in 10 countries, documenting life amidst unfolding global conflicts. Through interviews, photography, recordings, and video, Von Bargen has illuminated the tapestry of human struggle and perseverance across the globe. At the heart of his work are in-depth observations and dialogue with his environment. The resulting photographs show the inspiration obtained by the artist from the struggles of people for survival and the proximity that comes from humanitarian aid. This monumental effort was undertaken with the help of a group of protagonists including doctors, medical staff, volunteers, patients, victims and everyday people—the cacophony of voices form So.lil.o.quy.“Alec Von Bargen’s body of work, comprising installation, photographic and temporal works, undertaken throughout 10 countries and comprising 23 projects, titled 'So.lil.o.quy', destabilises traditional notions of knowledge and representation within visual cultures and methodologies as found in both fields of art and anthropology, attesting to and engaging within a new vision of representational practice, offering a more authentic response to the world.”—Lynne Roberts Goodwin Press: Armenia Art Fair, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Head On Photo FestivalPublished by Pacific, 2018Texts by Avril Benoit, Elizabeth Karp-Evans, and Lynne Roberts-GoodwinHardcover 480 pages, 8 ¼ × 10 ¾ inches Edition of 500

'Impressions' includes scans, sketches, photographs and collages from in and around artist Michael Bennett’s studio. An extension of the Artist's process-based studio practice, this publication sees the subtraction and integration of different materials, textures and mark-making to create a similar outcome seen in Bennett’s painting and sculpture.Collections: MoMA LibraryPublished by Pacific, 2018Softcover128 pages, 7 ¼ × 9 ½ inches Edition of 250

'Măiastra: A History of Romanian Sculpture in Twenty-Four Parts' by Igor Gyalakuthy is an experimental novel by artist Timothy Stanley. Presented as a series of scholarly articles on the history of Romanian art, the collection was written under the pseudonym Dr. Gyalakuthy: a retired Art Historian from Romania, writing a final treatise on the plastic art of his homeland before time and the ravages of mental illness take him. Dr. Gyalakuthy sees Măiastra as an opportunity to shake off the rust of the cultural dark ages of Communism and to present the history of Art in Romania as he understands it. Volume One was originally published as a quarterly column in The Miami Rail. Volume Two to be released in fall 2021.Press: Miami Rail, Hudson EyeCollections: MoMA LibraryPublished by Pacific, 2019Softcover 168 pages, 5½ × 7¾ inchesEdition of 250

Once reserved to the writings of science fiction, for over a decade now Austin Lee has explored the shrinking dichotomy between the real world and virtual reality. His hypersaturated airbrush paintings are created through a combination of traditional painterly techniques, along with the latest digital tools.This extends into 'Like It Is', where Lee further investigates recognisable cultural motifs and art historical imagery, spanning from archival photos and tarot cards to Vermeer paintings. Screaming with colour, each psychedelic composition is partly inspired by the famous Rorschach test, a diagnostic psychological study that uses a subject’s perception of inkblots to analyse their personality characteristics and emotional functioning.Like It Is, is a softcover publication documenting Austin Lee's recent solo exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch, as well as a series of drawings and interactive AR elements. Press: Hypebeast, Print