IN CAMERA—FRANCIS BACON: FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY, AND THE PRACTICE OF PAINTING by Martin Harrison
With unprecedented access to unpublished material from Francis Bacon’s archives, Martin Harrison provides a new, comprehensive look into the life and work of this renowned artist. Finding inspiration in photographs, film stills, and mass-media imagery, Bacon developed an unparalleled style in his paintings that often reflected his complex, tortured, and astounding creative genius.

After making his debut in the art world with the well-known and often misunderstood “Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion” (1944), Bacon “went on to appropriate masterpieces of art history and to co-opt photographs as agents for dismantling them into modern high tragedy,” writes Harrison. He continues, hitting the nail on the head in a description of Bacon’s overall body of work: “In halftone reproduction a seminal Baroque painting by Velázquez was no more or less potent, or open to manipulation, than an image torn from a medical reference book or a close-up film still. Bacon explored the tensions between intelligence and sensation, abstraction and illustration, stasis and motion, order and chaos, to generate some of the most compellingly raw paintings of the century.”

Bacon’s style absolutely hinged upon his use of finding and fragmenting (some may even say misappropriating) existing photographs and historic paintings, and he did so with a vengeance. “His paintings—among the most distinctive and idiosyncratic of the 20th century—were the response to the complex cultural contexts of a kind of Nietzschean superman, who on the one hand was indifferent to his reputation, but on the other was determined to impose his highly individual vision of the world,” summarizes Harrison. “While the main focus of this book is on Bacon’s use of mechanical reproductions of paintings, photographs, and films in a shifting dialectic between art and photography, it also aims to elucidate the evolution of his modern figural style by incorporating elements of biography and by analyzing paintings made at pivotal moments in his career.”
$60, hardcover, 256 pages, Rizzoli Thames & Hudson

ROGUE WAVE ’05/ROGUE WAVE ’01 by L.A. Louver Gallery
No exhibition catalog can go wrong when designed by the talented Stefan Bucher. Rogue Wave ’05/Rogue Wave ’01, printed by Typecraft Wood and Jones in Pasadena, offers a look into the work of 19 artists who capture the spirit and vitality of emerging art in Los Angeles. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, Venice, Calif.-based L.A. Louver Gallery revisits artists from the Rogue Wave ’01 exhibition and uncovers fresh faces in the art world for its ’05 installation. This exhibition covers a wide range of media, from video to paint, laser print, dye, paper, and found objects, to name just a few. With an introduction by curator Peter Goulds and information about all participating artists, Rogue Wave is a testament to up-and-comers as well as veteran artists of L.A.
$30, softcover, 80 pages, L.A. Louver Gallery

HILLMAN CURTIS ON CREATING SHORT FILMS FOR THE WEB by Hillman Curtis
Legendary web designer and author Hillman Curtis has always been fascinated by motion and movement. In 2001, inspired in part by the affordability and accessibility of digital video, he began to experiment with short digital films in an effort to reinvigorate his creative spirit and express himself both personally and professionally. The projects Curtis describes in this book, each between 30 seconds and 10 minutes long, draw from a variety of creative sources and take various forms—documentaries, music videos, a fictional short film, and a series of video portraits. Each is unique, yet his goal is always the same: to capture in video the essence of his subject.

Equal parts inspiration, instruction, and personal essay, Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web offers an intimate look into the author’s personal filmmaking process: from the ideas and influences that drive the concept and theme of the piece, through the setup, shoot, and assembly of a rough cut, to the final edit. Curtis explains how his flexible, often spontaneous filmmaking style is guided by certain principles—the value of leaving room for serendipity, the freedom found within self-imposed limitations, the importance of collaborating with others, and the possibilities for discovery and revision when reacting to unforeseen accidents.

Throughout the book, Curtis offers advice on numerous elements of filmmaking, such as direction, sound, editing, and interviewing. Also included is a primer to help you get up and running with your own digital video projects—explaining the equipment you’ll need and providing an overview of the filmmaking process—and an appendix that guides you through building your own Flash video player.
$34.99, softcover, 224 pages, New Riders Publishing, an imprint of Peachpit

PARIS UNDERGROUND by Caroline Archer with Alexandre Parré
Built with the stone mined from quarries beneath, Paris stands atop a giant subterranean network of passages— more than 177 miles of them. For a dozen generations, people have been moved to leave a part of themselves behind in the dank, dark limestone and gypsum quarries carved beneath Paris. Quarry laborers, criminals, French Revolution soldiers, Nazis in World War II, the French Resistance, the striking students and workers of the late 1960s, and members of civilian and secret societies old and new have all left their marks on the hidden walls.

From sculptures, engineering inscriptions, pornographic stencils, personal notes, and mysterious encryptions, these graphic depictions, marks, and messages snake through the passageways and reveal nearly 400 years of Parisian history, from the time in 1777 that the caverns underwent major overhauls due to a collapsed Parisian street, to the present time when patrons both legal and illegal are inspired to carve, paint, write, or mold something from the underground chambers.
$45, hardcover, 192 pages, Mark Batty Publisher

WARNING by Nicole Recchia
This is a fun book exploring the often strange but highly informative warning signs illustrating the do’s and don’ts of everything from operating a crane to using a toilet. Nicole Recchia guides us through graphic interpretations of Murphy’s Law—i.e., what exactly can go wrong if I do, in fact, stick my hand into the wood chipper? Divided into the aptly named chapters Death and Disaster by: Electrocution, Falling Objects, Blades, Fire, Crushing, Falling, and of course, The Truly Bizarre, Warning illustrates what can happen if we’re not careful or we ignore the signs meant to save us. “What follows is a collection of graphic warning labels,” Recchia explains in her introduction. “It is full—dangerously full—of depictions of the most gruesome and horrible ways to be removed from the gene pool with a simple lawn mower or a friendly household excavator.”
$19.95, hardcover, 128 pages, Mark Batty Publisher