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Bo Press’ Mini Books

Pat Sweet, founder and publisher of Bo Press, discusses her love for miniature books, her eclectic “dog’s breakfast” list of titles, and the miniature as object.

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Two Letters from Henry Miller

Watercolorist and writer Irving Stettner ran the fun-loving, zine-style magazine Stroker—with its motto, “Every word like a Crackerjack box—with a surprise!”—from 1974 until his passing in 2002, publishing work by Henry Miller, Paul Bowles, Charles Bukowski, and many others. Issue 33 (1986) contained a pair of letters from his close friend Henry Miller.

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Dog-ears, Notecards, Lies

Erica Baum raises the dog-ear to new heights of artfulness. Roland Barthes mourns his mother, whom he lived with all his life. John Gallas tells lies by the bushel. David Shook profiles three recent books from Ugly Duckling Presse, Hill and Wang, and Carcanet.

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Ai Weiwei, Newly Released!!

Brian Hewes offers a review in photos of Christian Chaudahari’s new zine Ai Weiwei, Newly Released, a crash course on the dissident Chinese artist’s work, aesthetics, and recent incarceration, as well as the politics surrounding contemporary Chinese art culture.

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El Catrín: Minnesotan Broadsides

From Start to Here, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts 25th Anniversary Broadside Portfolio showcases a wide range of book arts techniques including typeset letterpress printing, hand papermaking, calligraphy, wood engraving, reductive linocut and many others.

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Hopscotch: Snapshots of Art Books on Calligraphy, Islam, and Text

Snapshots of art books on calligraphy, Islam, and text in art, from publishers Prestel, Reaktion, and Sylph Editons, selected for their conversation with each other.

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Chinese Artists, Chinese Learners, & Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong said, “My poems are so stupid—you mustn’t take them seriously.” But Willis Barnstone has to great effect. Brief reviews of his new translation, Jonathan Stalling’s debut collection, and Young Chinese Artists.

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Brunetti’s Cartooning

Ivan Brunetti, the cartoonist whose work ranges from cute to morally questionable (see his book Ho!), has written a small, instructional book called Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice. Geoff Gossett, the lesser-known cartoonist whose work is mostly just morally questionable, has written a small review.

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Black in White America

Nathan French reviews the new Getty Publications facsimile reissue of Leonard Freed’s 1967 photo-essay classic Black in White America, declaring it a resonant history and relevant contemporary critique.

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Fur-Lined Handcuffs: DIRTY BABY, Part 2

David Breskin explains why the ghazal works to accompany Ed Ruscha’s art and Nels Cline’s music. “In the end, I felt that I was writing while wearing the world’s most luxurious set of fur-lined handcuffs.”

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Opening Out: DIRTY BABY, Part 1

“I want these books to open out instead of close down. I’ve got a library full of what I consider fantastic, successful art books, but the main modality of art books tends to be forensic. The art’s put on the table and it’s examined, and the experts come in and they tell you about it. They tell you what made the thing, brought it to life, who the parents were, what ultimately killed it.”

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Peruvian Vanguardist + Picasso

Though he eventually traded in his work as poet for a life of Marxist activism, Carlos Oquendo de Amat did publish one significant collection, written during from age 18 to 20, Five Meters of Poems. David Shook reviews that collection together with Picasso by Picasso.

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