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NZ Library: Set #1 (Six Volumes), Limited Edition [SIGNED]: Bevan Davies: Los Angeles 1976; John Divola: San Fernando Valley; Steve Kahn: The Hollywood Suites; Idris Khan: Image | Music | Text; Daido Moriyama: Mantis; John Schott: Route 66

Publisher: Portland, Oregon: Nazraeli Press, 2014
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: New / New
Item #: 110782

$900.00

Specifics

PRICING & EDITION NUMBER: The price of this set of six titles reflects a 40% discount compared to purchasing titles individually ($150 per title compared to $250 per title).

DISCOUNT ON SET 1 SPECIAL EDITIONS: Customers who purchase this set of six titles also qualify for a $150 discount off the price of a special limited edition from Set 1 (with print) of one of the six titles from the set (you will receive a second copy of the slipcased book with the special limited edition). Otherwise, special edition price is net to all; promotional discounts do not apply.

SHIPPING NOTE: due to size and weight (e.g., multi-volume sets), additional shipping fees apply (calculated at checkout).

First edition, first printing. Limited edition of 350 copies. Each of the six volumes is numbered on the colophon page and signed by the artist on a label tipped in to the back cover. Each volume in the set shares the following characteristics: Hardcover. Silk cloth-covered boards; with photographically illustrated dust jacket and silk cloth-covered slipcase. 15 x 12 inches.

Condition

New in publisher's packaging.

Description

From the publisher: "We are excited to announce the NZ Library, a new series of limited edition, highly collectible artist's books. Printed on Japanese art paper using our exclusive "Daido black" inks, all books in the NZ Library have certain aspects in common: each title is produced using the highest material and production values; each is limited to 350 numbered and signed copies; each is bound in silk cloth and individually slipcased. Each book in the series is uniform in height, with a slipcased format of 15 x 12 inches. The NZ Library will be built six titles at a time, with groupings curated to balance and play off of past, present and future titles in the series. While copies will be available to purchase individually, a generous discount is extended for orders of all six titles in any given set.

Set 1 highlights work by some of the most creative and influential photographic artists active in Los Angeles during the 1970s; re-presents the long-overdue "wayward piece of the puzzle"-- John Schott's entire "Route 66 Motels" portfolio -- to the available literature relating to the groundbreaking New Topographics exhibition shown in 1975 at the George Eastman House in Rochester; offers new insight into Daido Moriyama's working methodology; and provides an ideal forum for the first international publication on the work of superstar contemporary artist Idris Khan."

Volume One: Bevan Davies: Los Angeles 1976. ISBN 978-1-59005-383-6. 48 pp., with 32 duotone plates. From the publisher: "Bevan Davies's meticulously printed photographs suggest an appreciation of this form of residential architecture with respect both to the facades on which their identities hinge and to the built spaces between those facades. Preferring to photograph during early morning hours on weekends, Davies positioned the film plane of his 8x10-inch camera parallel to the buildings' fronts, to capture the nuanced play of shadows. The resulting images lend depth to structural and decorative elements that are simultaneously utilitarian and aesthetic." From "Ed Ruscha and Some Los Angeles Apartments" by Virginia Heckert: "Los Angeles 1976 is an exquisitely-produced collection of Bevan Davies's photographs of residential Los Angeles architecture, a subject perfectly suited to his working methods at that time. Born in 1941 and educated at the University of Chicago during the 1960s, Bevan Davies hit his intellectual and artistic stride in the 1970s, dovetailing perfectly with the uniquely fertile grounds that Los Angeles was becoming during that decade. The immediate impact of the work Davies produced at this time is reflected in the list of solo and group exhibitions in which his photographs were shown, including such venues as Sonnabend Gallery, New York; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels. Photographs by Bevan Davies are included in the permanent collections of many important collections, including The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston."

Volume Two: John Divola: San Fernando Valley. ISBN 978-1-59005-384-3. 60 pp., with 46 duotone plates. From the publisher: "San Fernando Valley is where John Divola was born and raised, and it served as both backdrop and subject for his earliest, serious photographic explorations, made during the early 1970s. This previously unpublished body of work shows 'the Valley' through the eyes of a young photographer who would soon become an internationally-recognized artist with the exhibition and publication of his much more conceptual 'Zuma' series. The black and white photographs in 'San Fernando Valley' comprise a series of subject groupings which, pulled together, show early manifestations of the deadpan humor and the ability to capture everyday scenes wrapped in loneliness, for which Divola is now well-known. The book is also, and not incidentally, a fascinating record of a quintessentially 1970s Los Angeles culture. John Divola's work is the subject of numerous books and catalogues. Widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, Divola’s photographs are included in the permanent collections of many public and private institutions, including those of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art."

Volume Three: Steve Kahn: The Hollywood Suites. ISBN 978-1-59005-385-0. 56 pp., with 51 duotone plates. From the publisher: "The images in Steve Kahn's enigmatic The Hollywood Suites were all made in run-down apartments between the years 1974 and 1976. Alternately provocative and haunting, they were the subject of solo exhibitions on the West Coast and in Europe during that decade and included in noted group exhibitions such as 'Exposing: Photographic Definitions' at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in 1976 and 'The Altered Photograph' at P.S. 1 in New York in 1979. The series divides into two groups of pictures. The Hollywood Suites (nudes) features sexually charged pictures of young women, often partially clad and sometimes cropped. In The Hollywood Suites (mirrors, windows and doors), Kahn concentrated on architectural interiors, making arresting use of windows and doors. The images themselves are grainy and offer an unnaturally sharp contrast between darks and lights. Select examples feature doorways embellished with geometric patterns done in twine. Kahn, who was born in 1943, was part of an important generation of Los Angeles photographers that included Robert Heinecken, Ilene Segalove and Jerry McMillan, among others. They brought a conceptual and collage approach to the picture. Many were chronicled in the important exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum, Proof: Los Angeles and the Photograph: 1960-1980 and Kahn is also included the 2011 book, L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980. Steve Kahn's work is included in the permanent collections of institutions across the United States and Europe, including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, Toulon, France; and De Beyerd Museum; Breda, Holland. NOTE: A SPECIAL EDITION (WITH 2 PRINTS) IS ALSO AVAILABLE.

Volume Four: Idris Khan: Image | Music | Text. ISBN 978-1-59005-386-7. 72 pp., with 29 duotone plates. From the publisher: "London-based artist Idris Khan was born in the UK in 1978. Since completing his Master's Degree with a Distinction in Research at the Royal College of Art in London in 2004, Khan has received international acclaim for his minimal, yet emotionally charged photographs, videos and sculptures and is without question one of the most exciting British artists of his generation. Appropriating icons of literature, music, and art, Khan methodically layers his material, whether it is Beethoven's symphony, Milton's Paradise Lost, or Bernd and Hilla Becher's stylized sculpture of water towers. In speaking about his work, Khan says that 'every layer is an effect that needs to be created... Each layer is a fallible human decision. There is a decision made as to what I want to keep and what has to disappear. This process allows me to cut out the camera completely.' Each layer in the resulting artwork adds complexity similar to a painter's mark on a canvas. Khan's photographs are not 'taken;' they are built. The final composite image has the look and feel of a dense, quivering charcoal drawing. Image | Music | Text presents a selection of Khan's most powerful imagery to date, enjoying the intimacy of a book's presentation while taking full advantage of the series's generous format. The artist's design incorporates three gatefold spreads, each measuring some thirty inches across. The subject of numerous exhibitions at internations venues, Idris Khan's work is in the permanent collections of many institutions worldwide such as The Saatchi Collection, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France."

Volume Five: Daido Moriyama: Mantis. ISBN 978-1-59005-387-4. 48 pp., with 21 duotone plates. From the publisher: "As one of the most celebrated and influential artists of his generation, Daido Moriyama has been the subject of dozens of books and films, and literally hundreds of exhibitions mounted around the world during the past three decades. His subjects are often sprawling, both geographically and metaphorically, with one influencing the next. In 'Mantis,' however, the act of photographing becomes the subject of the book, decades after the fact. In this beautifully produced artist's book, Moriyama presents 21 frames printed as full-bleed enlargements, all from one contact sheet with an imprinted date of 1987. The book is divided into three unintended chapters, the result of Daido having photographed one subject until he was satisfied, moving on to the next, and then repeating this once more. The book opens, fantastically, with a close-up of the hand of Masahisa Fukase, the artist's friend and contemporary, holding a praying mantis which has caught the attention of them both; after several frames, Moriyama abruptly stops and then continues the roll of film inside of a studio apartment elsewhere. A female subject unwittingly and slowly becomes mantis-like in her poses, and gradually she merges into yet another subject, a mysterious set of portraits whose timelessness is given away only by the frames that preceded it." NOTE: A SPECIAL EDITION (WITH PRINT) IS ALSO AVAILABLE.

Volume Six: John Schott: Route 66. ISBN 978-1-59005-388-1. 60 pp., with 47 duotone plates. From the publisher: "In the summer of 1973, John Schott drove Route 66 from the midwest to California and back, sleeping in his pick-up truck and photographing with an 8x10-inch Deardorf view camera. Among his subjects were vintage motels situated along the highway, and it was a selection of these photographs that, two years later, were included in William Jenkins' seminal New Topographics exhibition at the George Eastman House. The twenty images that were included in this exhibition have been well-documented, though never reproduced in a manner showing the richness of detail and tone displayed in the original contact prints. We are pleased to announce that, as part of our NZ Library, a beautifully printed, oversized book is now available which presents not only the 20 photographs originally shown from this important body of work, but all 47 photographs included in the artist's complete set of archived images. This important new publication opens with an illuminating essay by Britt Salvesen, Department Head and Curator of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography, and the Department Head and Curator of Prints and Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a leading expert on the subject. John Schott's photographs are held in the permanent collections of many public collections, including those of The George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums." NOTE: FIVE SPECIAL EDITIONS (EACH VARIANT WITH A PRINT) ARE ALSO AVAILABLE.