Goody goody gum drops! More Things? You betcha! This week we’re dishing out some carnivalesque set design, old school rebel publishing, an homage to Gary Hume, vintage Belgian photographs and a batch of illustrations that would looks as happy on your child’s lunchbox as they would on your bookshelf. Ready to dive in?
Paga Extra No. 7 Antonio Ladrillo
The seventh in their series of take-away zines each showcasing a single artist, this issue of Paga Extra features the work of one of our favorite illustrators Antonio Ladrino . This little Spanish publication is seven inches in size, and like a record its purpose is to give us a flavour of an artist’s body of work. Well, Ladrillo’s work has a distinct taste of crayons and finger-paint – primary colours, smiling faces and sparse dialogue imbue his work with child-like enthusiasm (we are lines! we are curves!).
www.damelapaga.es
Lord Whitney Amy Lord and Rebekah Whitney
Lord Whitney is a collaboration between two Leeds-based broads who dabble in everything from prop making and set design to photography and styling. They’ve sent through a sizeable unbound broadsheet, an apt form for displaying some images of their most recent life-sized installations. Drawing inspiration from carnival culture and sci-fi while appropriating materials found around their studio, these are some studied constructions that maintain an aura of fun and frivolity. Nice one ladies!
www.lordwhitney.co.uk
Others Edward Newton
There’s a nostalgic pleasure in looking through those old suitcases you find at antique markets, the ones filled up with old photographs of families you never knew and postcards send between lovers whose stories it’s nice to imagine. Well Edward Newton spent a year in Brussels doing just that, sourcing images from the flea market in the Palace du Jeu de Balle. He’s reprinted nine of them for the first of an ongoing series he calls Others. It’s also been designed by The Office of Optimism (best studio name ever? Just putting it out there), whose other design work for The White Review we’ve been cuckoo about for ages.
www.theofficeofoptimism.com
www.highchair-editions.co.uk
Flashback Gary Hume
Gary Hume of YBA origins, renowned abstractor of form and master of colour, has recently been the star of Flashback, an exhibition taking place in four galleries around the UK. Hayward Publishing have released this beautiful volume to expand upon the show itself, offering essays, interviews, and of course plenty of breathing space for a healthy selection of Hume’s best work. A well-designed art-book that both flatters and examines the thinking of an artist who “through painting and more lately sculpture, has devoted a life to translating the existential horror an joy of simply being in the world.”
www.ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk
The Electric Information Age Book Jeffery T. Schnapp and Adam Michaels
This handy book explores the nine-year window during the 1960s and 1970s when formerly “backstage” members of the mass-market publishing industry, i.e. graphic designers, artists and editors, took the reigns to create a series of exceptional and experimental books. The aim was to reach young media-saavy consumers to share the ideas of radical contemporary thinkers like R. Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan and Herman Kahn. Heady stuff perhaps, but this retrospective is entirely readable and just plain beautiful. A collage-y design and unexpected typography lend sincerity to the project, which seems as much about informing the reader as it is about celebrating the original work. Very interesting.
www.jeffreyschnapp.com
www.projectprojects.com