Artists' Books in Crossett: Artists' Books by BIPOC artists

Active in New York City from 1991 to 1995, fierce pussy was composed of a fluid and often-shifting cadre of dykes. Core members included Pam Brandt, Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Alison Froling, Zoe Leonard, Suzanne Wright, and Carrie Yamaoka. Adamantly low-tech, fast and low-budget, fierce pussy relied on modest resources: old typewriters, found photographs, their own baby pictures, and whatever material they could get donated. Much of the work was produced using the equipment at their day jobs. Emerging during a decade steeped in the AIDS crisis, activism, and queer identity politics, fierce pussy brought lesbian identity directly out into the streets in a manner characterized by the urgency of those years. Published on the occasion of the collective's 2008 exhibition at Printed Matter, this poster book reproduces 16 classic posters from fierce pussy in an over-sized format with spiral binding. Offset Printed. Edition Size 1000. Pages
17 p. Dimensions 43.5 x 28 cm.

Spanning 500 years of colonial destruction, human trafficking and blood sucking, Nosferasta is a Rastafarian vampire film by Adam Khalil, an artist, filmaker, and member of the Ojibway tribe, and Bayley Sweitzer, a filmaker, and Oba, a Trinidadian artist and musician living in Brooklyn. Interspersed with Oba’s literacy diaries, this publication features critical essays, speculative fiction and visual contributions that expand on the exhibition at Gasworks, London with contributions from Peggy Ahwesh, Lou Cornum, Sabel Gavaldon, Alex Esco, Austin Sley Julian, Mutabaruka, and Laura Vallés. 176 p.; 14.8 x 11.5 cm; Spiral Bound; Offset Printed;
Edition of 1500.

A poem by Pablo Neruda translated by Elsa Neuberger illustrated with woodcuts by Antonio Frasconi. Tipped in frontispiece print on handmade Goyu paper and signed by Frasconi in pencil. Printed at the Spiral Press under the direction of Joseph Blumenthal; signed by Frasconi and Blumenthal in the colophon. Type: Emerson. Paper: Rives mouldmade. Slip case with label. Signed edition of 300. Crossett owns number 182.

"Sadly, as people of color we experience discrimination everyday. It's exhausting. And when it happens, we often question ourselves, thinking: Did that just happen? Am I being too sensitive? And when we can identify that it is discrimination and speak to it, we're often questioned and others often don't believe us or brush us off, calling us too sensitive or angry. The burden falls on us to prove that we are being discriminated against. This book is here for you to take detailed logs of your everyday aggressions so that you can show off your receipts--proof." Aram Han Sifuentes. [65] p. 20.5 x 15.5 cm. Spiral Bound. Digitally printed. Edition of 100.

Unfolding Practice: Reflections on Learning and Teaching is a conversation between two artist-educators. Flowing across five chapters, the double sided accordion book has been curated from ten years of recorded conversations, field notes, planning, sketches, reflection, and teaching. The front of the book weaves text, illustration, cutouts, and screen prints, journeying through artistic process and educational practice. The back of the book is a guide, expanding on the practice of using accordion books as a tool for capturing, visualizing, and building upon reflective thinking. The brown paper alludes to the craft paper that is ubiquitous in schools and captures process more than the preciousness of a final product. Throw out accordion in hard covers. 7.875 x 5.25 x .75 Edition of 60. Silkscreen, Digital, Laser-cut, Hand-cut. Helvetica Neue. Hard cover bound. Throw out accordion.

And Yet My Mask is Powerful emerges from an exhibition by multimedia artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, held at Carroll / Fletcher in London in 2016. Carrying on from their earlier project The Incidental Insurgents (2012-2015), the artists address the apocalyptic logic of perpetual crisis that characterizes the contemporary moment. The project takes its title from Adrienne Rich's poem "Diving Into the Wreck," and like that of the poem, its mise-en-scène is a field of wreckage. Here, the artists visit destroyed villages in occupied Palestine, documenting groups of Palestinian youths wearing copies of Neolithic masks. These masks, some of the oldest in the world, were originally found in the West Bank and are now stored in private Israeli collections; they have been copied and 3D-printed by the artists from online exhibition photographs. The book uses computer screenshots of images framed in software windows, layering them across the pages along with scans and typographic interventions. The work suggests a sense of collapse and return, but one oriented toward futurity, reworking the Arab world's apocalyptic imaginary into another, parallel, unrealized time. 184 p. 24 x 20.5 cm. Offset Printed. Edition of 1,000.

"Informed by the closing section in his previous book, Boo Moon, Korean artist Boomoon Kwon has created a new series of high-altitude skyscapes that function perfectly in our One Picture Book format. Boomoon is one of Korea’s greatest contemporary photographers. His work has been widely exhibited throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States. On the Clouds comprises reproductions of twelve images, and one original signed print." "One Picture Book series was conceived in 1998 as a way to make original artwork affordable. The series consists of uniformly designed, modestly-sized hardcover books, comprising 16 pages that serve as a “canvas” for the artist to display one cohesive body of work. Each One Picture Book is published in an edition of 500 numbered copies, and each contains an original tipped-in photograph, signed on the verso by the artist; hence the name of the series." 19 cm. Edition of 500. Crossett owns number 480.

"“It Wasn’t Little Rock” was the response that black students in Arlington, Virginia often gave when asked about their experiences in the newly racially desegregated public schools of the 1960s. It was short-hand for we might have problems but we are not being subjected to the unspeakable hatred that was showered on black students when they integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. White students spat on, beat up, yelled insults, destroyed black student lockers, threw flaming paper wads at them in the bathrooms, and even threw lighted sticks of dynamite at and sprayed acid in the eyes of a female black student. To Arlington students, Central High in Little Rock provided the standard for what they might face when integrating their county’s formerly all white schools." As a high school student, the author was named lead plaintiff in Clarissa Thompson et al. v. County School Board of Arlington County (June 1956), a school desegregation class action suit filed in U.S. District Court. 8 x 11 in., 74 p. spiral bound. Edition of 150.

"I am a black woman. I am an artist. For many years I have been creating work to bring issues of social justice into the public discourse. This book evolved from a project for which I folded origami cranes from pages of white supremacist books for the exhibition: Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate." In this work, historical elements are used as a framing device to construct the evolution of our shared identity. Illustrated paper wrappers with flaps. Housed in foldout die-cut box with gold foil origami crane inserted into cover slot. Book, cover and case designed by Susan Rhew Design, Inc. and printed by Blue Ridge Printing, both of Asheville, NC. Edition of 1000. Crossett own copy 277. Signed. Perfect bound softcover. Four-color offset lithography.

This book relates the stories of Jake, a white male who transitions from female to male, and Ellen Craft, a 19th century black woman, who escaped slavery by passing as a white man. In photographing Jake’s transformation, Sligh explores society’s response to the act of changing one’s identity and re-examines her own fears of crossing the boundaries of gender, race and class. Edition of 46. 26 x 18 cm. Paper: Rives Heavyweight. Printing method: Screen print, digital. Typeface: Clarendon, Bodoni, Gill Sans Bold, Futura and Bookman Old Style. Binding: Case Bound. Signed by the artist.

"Photographer Daido Moriyama book features photographs he made over the years of kuchibiru (lips). The subjects range from anonymous women whose likenesses are reproduced on posters, to Daido’s own friends and acquaintances." "One Picture Book series was conceived in 1998 as a way to make original artwork affordable. The series consists of uniformly designed, modestly-sized hardcover books, comprising 16 pages that serve as a “canvas” for the artist to display one cohesive body of work. Each One Picture Book is published in an edition of 500 numbered copies, and each contains an original tipped-in photograph, signed on the verso by the artist; hence the name of the series." 19 cm. Edition of 500. Crossett owns number 459.

ENCOUNTERS is a collection of photographs taken by Dean Sameshima between 1993-2001 throughout Los Angeles, California, at varying “tearooms”. Tearooms are public spaces, mainly public restrooms, where men meet for anonymous sex. Sameshima began a documentary photography series titled WONDERLAND in 1993 while an undergrad at CalArts. At this time he felt an urgency to start documenting public sex spaces in Los Angeles as a way of recording an important part of his history and Los Angeles gay history. These tearoom drawings were especially interesting to him because they were the most temporary form of communication and many were painted over/erased by his subsequent visits. While working on this project, many of the tearooms were being policed, raided and eventually shut down. 28 p. 20 x 13 cm. Paperback. Binding: Staple Bound. Risograph. Edition of 250.

"Coloured Publishing" stamped and edition etched on back. Comes with 2 rubber clutches, signed Certificate of Authenticity, and our four-part, hand-made mini zine Killer Breed. Killer Breed lists every date in 2016 that a black man or woman was killed by law enforcement, along with the names of victims and perpetrators. 2" gold-plated pin. 4mm thick. Edition of 100. Crossett owns number 24.

El muro by Eduardo Hernández Santos is ten triptych photographs documenting the Cuban LGBTQ community. "Working in the dark of night he printed them on expired photo paper and with exhausted chemistry, in his bedroom-turned-darkroom in Centro Habana. Hernández then adhered lines of poetry by the late Cuban poet and playwright Virgilio Piñera to the photographs of the wall, metaphorically breaking down the mortar that supports the hateful edifice of heteronormativity that confines his subjects to the edge of the city. Also included is a bi-lingual translation of the lines by poet Virgilio Piñera and the individual letters Hernandez added to the photographs of the wall, which are abbreviations of pejorative terms used in Cuba to refer to homosexuals. Wire-o binding opening to 20" so the triptychs may be viewed in full. Edition of 1200. 9 x 14; 18 leaves (2 pink free end sheets, 1 pink divider, 10 photograph fold outs, 5 text pages). Ten black and white triptych photographs, two bilingual essays, and a glossary. Printed by duotone offset lithography on Shine, a luminous mica-coated acid-free paper, with three sheets of translucent magenta paper separating the photographs and essays.

"Japanese artist Emi Anrakuji displays reproductions of her one-off digital prints (made by digitally printing the extraordinary self-portraits for which she is best known) onto e hagaki (picture postcards)." "One Picture Book series was conceived in 1998 as a way to make original artwork affordable. The series consists of uniformly designed, modestly-sized hardcover books, comprising 16 pages that serve as a “canvas” for the artist to display one cohesive body of work. Each One Picture Book is published in an edition of 500 numbered copies, and each contains an original tipped-in photograph, signed on the verso by the artist; hence the name of the series." 19 cm. Edition of 500. Crossett owns number 433.

The Women’s Studio Workshop invited twelve artists working in the social terrains of California, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee to consider the safety pin’s rise as the symbol of contemporary protest. The resulting portfolio, In Solidarity, captures the waves of distrust, encouragement, criticism, and hope in calls for allyship following the 2016 presidential election. Silkscreen and digitally printed. Edition of 35. Crossett owns number 5. Signed. Loose leaf with case.

Sudanese artist, writer, critic, and cultural diplomat Ibrahim El-Salahi (born 1930) is one of the critical figures of African and Arabic modernism. While serving as Sudan’s Undersecretary of Culture in 1975, El-Salahi was imprisoned without trial and endured six months of deprivation in the notorious Cooper (now Kober) Prison. During a period of house arrest that followed, he exorcised his experience in the Prison Notebook, an intensely personal work that is both a major historical document and a masterpiece of drawing, its pages filled with remarkable pen-and-ink drawings that demonstrate the artist’s graphic mastery. This bilingual English-Arabic volume, comprises a facsimile of the Prison Notebook; an English translation of its prose; a contextualizing essay by art historian Salah Hassan that addresses the social and political milieu in which it was produced; and contemporary commentary by the artist. 148 pages. 29 x 17 cm. Sewn bound.

"TOWNIES is a zine cataloging the lived experiences, stories, and imaginations of PoC and LGBTQIA+ folks // who live or have lived in pockets of suburban, rural, and small town America // that have culturally and politically been associated with and claimed by whiteness and bigotry. This is a new vision of Americana. On the fringes, in the heartland, we are here too." 32 pages. 27 x 21 cm. Perfect Binding. Digitally printed.

"Paper Paper Film is a paper sculpture facsimile of a box set of educational films on Paper and Gravure Printing, published by Meridian Educational Films in 1983. The original box set was found in a storage closet within Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art Print Studios. Through the creation of this laboriously handmade physical copy, the artist transforms an outdated tool for education into an art object in direct conversation with the power structures of how, why, and what is archived." 112 unnumbered pages; 7 x 11 cm + 4 paper sculptures (7 x 10 x 1 cm and 37 x 52 mm diameter) and 1 sheet (18 x 23 cm); Papers: handmade cotton paper, Colorplan (bright red and leather embossed) acetate, Rives BFK, Awagami Murakumo Kozo Select Natural Digital Inkjet Washi; Perfect Bound (adhesive); die cut; silkscreen and digitally printed.

Inception is inspired by stories and journeys of the refugees. It is a bilingual codex in English and Arabic. The book is based on the twelfth-century Persian verse poem "The Conference of the Birds" written by Farid Aldin Al-Attar. The poem is about the search for truth and integrity, which is parallel to the refugee's quest to re-discover themselves. Birds meet to begin searching for their perfect king. Their leader, the hoopoe, encouraged and supported the birds to be confident, grateful, and honest. Only 30 bids complete the journey, eventually recognize that their king is each of them and all of them. The English text is adapted from Afkham Darbandi translation. The Arabic text is adapted from Badee Mohamed Gomaa Arabic translation “Manteq Al Tayr”. The bird images represented are from medieval Islamic artwork. Arabic Calligraphy is done by Abdul Karim and Sabri. 4.5" x 3.5"; thirty sections with four folios. 2" diameter x 0.75" miniature accordion books. Laser-cut Fabriano and tracing paper, plexiglass mirror, and wood. Coptic binding. Signed edition of 30.

In February 2003 the Fondation Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam, Luxembourg accepted D. Rotunno and E. Geradon-Luyckx's (Tarantua Luxembourg) project, based on the work and personality of the Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru. Mudam has published the artist book designed by Paul Kirps that traces the history of the project and all it implies and reveals about both Luxembourg and Japan. French and English texts.

Each leaf of heavy paper stock has cut-out footprint of the World Trade Center. The first leaves consist of a single pinhole die-cut representing the antenna; the following one hundred and twenty leaves with two identical square die-cuts represent each floor of the towers, and the final leaf is a die-cut footprint of the financial district street grid surrounding the twin towers.

A companion to Jesse Chun's eponymous Karaoke video essay, this book centers on a 2,000-year old folk song, which South Korea and North Korea both registered as their own for the UNESCO Intangible Heritage list in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Featuring text documents from the validation process, translations and mistranslations of the lyrics, views of fragmented landscapes, Intangible Heritage disrupts the bureaucratic narrative underlying its subject matter. Publisher: Wendy's Subway. 36 pages; Saddle-stitched; Risograph. Edition of 125

Trickster’s Journey reimagines the tarot by exploring its themes through the lens of Eastern mysticism, folklore, and spirituality. By renaming the Fool card to Trickster, a character based on the legendary Monkey King in Journey to the West, this archetype of the sojourner takes on new meaning—and new agency—as a seeker of truth and self-discovery. Created by artist Jia Sung, this fresh take on the classic figures in the Major and Minor Arcana uses symbols from Buddhism and ancient Chinese history to enliven this age-old divination practice once more.

"A poetry comic that follows the mythological hybrid as it enacts its roles of hunter, stalker, executioner, devourer." - Jia Sung. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable describes a harpy as "In Greek and Roman mythology, a rapacious monster described as having a woman's head and body and a bird's wings and claws or (as in Virgil's Aeneid) depicted as a bird of prey with a woman's face; in extended usage, a grasping unscrupulous woman." Jia Sung is a Singaporean Chinese artist, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work draws on motifs from Chinese mythology, Buddhist iconography, and the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert the archive through a queer feminist lens. 7 unnumbered pages. 16 cm. Binding: Saddle Stitch / Staple.

Orientalist Tinder contains portraits and captions based on the artist's experience using the social app. Jia Sung is a Singaporean Chinese artist, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work draws on motifs from Chinese mythology, Buddhist iconography, and the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert the archive through a queer feminist lens. Single sheet folded.

Based on a personal experience of loss, View is a bookwork that deals directly with ideas of coming to terms with mortality. This piece includes two books (Mise en scène and Afterimage) that are housed in a cream- and brown cloth-covered compartmented box. Letterpress printed using a combination of photopolymer plates, wood blocks, and pressure plates. 'Mise en scène' is a one-sided three-layer nested accordion; second layer contains text on individual strips; paper-covered boards trimmed in cloth with title and number 'I' onlaid on front cover. 'Afterimage' has concertina spine; pages folded at fore-edge and glued to concertina; text appears through mylar overlays visible through cut-outs on each page. Bare tree branch motif throughout pages; paper-covered boards trimmed in cloth with title and number 'II' onlaid on front cover. Hinged box top uses a magic wallet structure: opened one way it reveals the books in separate trays with ribbon pulls; opened the other way it reveals a miniature dreamscape. Housed in matching cloth-covered folding case. Limited edition of 100 copies.

"This sketchbook was begun in Munich in 1999, when I was 29 years old. Like most sketchbooks it served as a portal between the real world and the realm of her imagination. Although it was never intended to be shared, nevertheless quite a bit of “work” came out of this particular book, including the installation ‘Insurrection! (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On)’, which is in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum. That, however, is an exception to the rule. For the most part the pages in this sketchbook reflect uneasy, unrefined, unfinished thoughts and anxieties, written and drawn with no objectives, no ulterior motives, and no filters." - Kara Walker.
[212] p. 23 x 15 cm. Sewn Binding.

"In 1970 Ken Ohara created a body of work called “One,” for which he randomly selected people on the streets of New York and asked if he could take their picture. The resulting full-face portraits are larger than life, close-cropped black-and-white photographs that are as striking as they are unsettling. Ohara’s subjects vary in gender, race and age but the portraits come together as a homogenous whole." "One Picture Book series was conceived in 1998 as a way to make original artwork affordable. The series consists of uniformly designed, modestly-sized hardcover books, comprising 16 pages that serve as a “canvas” for the artist to display one cohesive body of work. Each One Picture Book is published in an edition of 500 numbered copies, and each contains an original tipped-in photograph, signed on the verso by the artist; hence the name of the series." 19 cm. Edition of 500. Crossett owns number 202.

Lettermen figures the 1965 Alcorn State Braves football team from Lorman, Mississippi. Publisher: Wendy's Subway. Pages: 24. Size: 19 x 13.5 cm. Edition of 125.

"The Testament Project is an exploration and re-conception of the contemporary black experience in America. The first part of this series deals with black men, who are portrayed in the extreme- either as very rich or very poor, they are demonized, infantilized, ridiculed, idolized or hyper-sexualized; and within the art canon there is a noticeable scarcity of black male representation. I give control of the color and lighting to my subjects, in order to create a space that is participatory and empowered. By including my subjects in the creation of the scene in the use of color, I seek to create photographs that portray individuality in addition to their blackness. In the more traditionally lit studio portraits, the subjects are named for their professions to emphasize the depth of their identities, beyond race." Kris Graves. 64 p. Paperback.Perfect Binding. Edition of 200.

The Testament Project is an exploration and re-conception of the contemporary black experience in America. More often than not, black people are portrayed in the extreme—either as very rich or very poor, they are demonized, infantilized, ridiculed, idolized or hyper-sexualized; and within the art canon there is a noticeable scarcity of black representation. "In these glowing portraits, control of the colored lighting is given to my subjects, in order to create a space that is participatory and empowered. By including subjects in the creation of the scene and the altering of color, I seek to create photographs that portray individuality in addition to their blackness." Kris Graves. [52] p. Perfect Binding

where are we now is based on the artist’s memories in the aftermath of her mother’s passing in Los Angeles in 2009. Her family had immigrated from Korea a few years before. Images in the book depict moments in her struggle with grief, depression, and her father’s alcohol abuse. Repeated imagery reflects the recurrence of events – how the artist dealt with the frequency of her dad’s alcoholic behaviors; and the cyclical return of the memories after moving away from home. 35cm X 48.5cm Silkscreen, letterpress (photopolymer), relief (linoleum) printed; Alegreya Sans and Nanum Gothic fonts; Masa soft white, Stonehenge (black) paper; Drum Leaf (adhesive) binding; Signed edition of 50. Crossett owns number 15.

For Projects 75, The Museum of Modern Art has published artist Laylah Ali's first book, a work composed entirely of her trademark green-headed, brown-bodied figures engaged in acts of violence. Stock characters such as security officers, sports figures, victims and oppressors that have been the subject of Ali's singular gouche pieces in the past now play out their aggressions in this hybrid comic / artists' book, an extended, nonlinear narrative designed by the artist to be a visual novelette.
40 p.; 18.5 x 24.5 cm.; Staple Bound; Offset Printed

Luis Corzo, Sue Ravitz and Keegan Mills Cooke present “Untitled (Cigarette Box) 2018,” a collaborative project featuring photographs, objects and this limited edition zine. Inspired by Ravitz’s collection of 1950-60’s cigarette boxes, photographer Luis Corzo sought to capture these vintage ceramic containers in a way that spoke to their unique ambiguity. Drawn to the inherent contradiction of a beautifully hand-crafted object made expressly to hold cigarettes, Corzo playfully reverses the intended function of these boxes by turning them into vessels of ‘healthy’ goods - blooming flowers, supple skin and vibrant fruits & vegetables. Designed and printed by Keegan Mills Cooke. Photographs by Luis Corzo.

Poetry. Spanish. No.204 of 250 copies. Signed by the author.

A field guide and handbook of thoughts, musings, observations, case studies, and histories (alternative, conventional, and otherwise) on the elevated structure formerly and now known as the High Line of Manhattan.

Haunting concrete poetry made from splicing together fragments of plays. 11 x 17.5 cm. Perfect binding. 109 p.

"Masao Yamamoto’s second contribution to our One Picture Book series pays homage to Mount Fuji, and to some of the comparisons its instantly recognizable silhouette has inspired over the centuries. Yamamoto’s jewel-like photographs capture perfectly the essence of Japan’s most famous mountain; Fujisan is truly a perfect pairing of artist and subject." "One Picture Book series was conceived in 1998 as a way to make original artwork affordable. The series consists of uniformly designed, modestly-sized hardcover books, comprising 16 pages that serve as a “canvas” for the artist to display one cohesive body of work. Each One Picture Book is published in an edition of 500 numbered copies, and each contains an original tipped-in photograph, signed on the verso by the artist; hence the name of the series." 19 cm. Edition of 500. Crossett owns number 95.

Khichdi (Kitchari) is a book about India’s rapidly changing identity, focusing on gender, technology, and the balance of traditional Indian and western culture. The work is intentionally conscious of photography as a shared experience, and Sethi incorporates his own interests and history, as well as himself, both as a photographer and participant throughout the work. Inspired by India’s ubiquitous decoration and hyper-color, as well as the serendipitous nature of his encounters, Sethi’s inquisitive approach encourages himself, his collaborators, as well as his audience to find and enjoy the beauty, humor, and absurdity in everyday life. Khichdi, a traditional Indian dish, is made from boiled rice and lentils, and includes a variety of spices, vegetables, and sometimes meat. Eaten throughout the entire country, and recently proclaimed the national dish of India, Khichdi takes on an infinite number of forms and preparations, changing region to region, state to state, and even household to household. No single recipe, list of ingredients, or even spelling is deemed to be official, with the only constant quality of the dish being its ever changing identity. In a similar fashion, Sethi’s work never offers a singular permanent viewpoint. Rather, it serves as a expanded, ever changing self portrait documenting an evolution of the country, its people, and the artist himself. 432 unnumbered pages. 28.5 x 21 cm. Embossed covers. Sewn bound. Offset printing. Edition of 1000.

In Tarot, García has collected and compiled advertisements for tarot card reading services around Querétaro and other parts of Mexico. The advertisements are uncanny conglomerations of the occult and capitalism, illuminating the ways in which spirituality is used and sold to people as a remedy for a wide range of issues and ailments. Gold Rain Books, the publisher, is an imprint of Da Substanz, an artist-run space and gallery based in Querétaro, Mexico. 38 p.; 28 x 21.7 cm; Risograph printed; Edition of 60. Signed and numbered.

García photographed hundreds of New York street signs and then used language from his images to compose a poem-like list of text. A single line of text from one New York sign appears on each fold of the accordion book. The paper Garca selected for the book transitions from bright green to blue to orange to red to yellow -- creating a verse-like effect for text on each color of paper. It was created as part of an Artist-in-Residence program 2021 at Center for Book Arts, NYC and used and 45 metal type specimens from the Center for Book Arts collection. 91 p.; 21.5 x 346.7 cm.; Edition of 200 signed and numbered. Crossett owns number 30. Accordion Binding. Letterpress Printed.

A list of the artist’s fears, ranging from physiological angst, to interpersonal and social anxieties, animal phobias, environmental worries, and political concerns, written in pencil on scratch paper during a research trip to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California in Summer 2018. Publisher: Wendy's Subway. Pages [12] p.; 22 x 14.5 cm; Stitch Bound; Risograph. Edition of 125.

Taxonomy of Shapes challenges the reader's perception of their environment and current systems of scientific classification. The book represents elements from both natural and man-made environments with hand drawn icons. A translucent, hand-waxed Kitakata overlay with small circle, square and triangle windows reveals selected objects from the letterpress-printed sheet beneath. Peering through the waxed Kitakata even reveals a glimpse of what's lost by the current classification. Edition of 52, signed and numbered by the artist. Crossett Library copy is number 41/52. Cardstock covers with accordion-fold pages letterpress printed from photopolymer plates on Sakamoto paper, with hand- and die-cut, folded waxed Kitakata paper overlays.

Mexican artist Rigoberto Díaz Julián has juxtaposed two texts: written instructions for police for the use of force and images from a 2016 confrontation between police and protesters in Oaxaca, Mexico. The protesters were blocking a highway, demonstrating against President Nieto’s educational reforms, and by the end of the protest 8 people would be killed by firearms. Throughout Nochixtlán, the instructional text moves through different levels of force used by police: verbal deterrence, physical restraint, use of non-lethal weapons, and use of lethal weapons. The calm and corporate tone of the instructions contrasts with the chaos of the images of protest, revealing the ease at which police violence occurs, and is excused. 32 pages. 11.5 cm x 16.5 cm. Perfect Binding. Risograph Printing.

Roberta Di Paolo, an Argentinian artist, compiled a series of 21 mysterious drawings created during the quarantine of 2020 into the book Extrañas Vacaciones (Strange Vacations.) Images of an inner trip that emerge from the depths towards the uncertain twilight of a forest inhabited by goblins that collect mushrooms, fairies that are friends with the flowers, insects of all kinds, spirits and shadows. A dreamlike and symbolic walk through the enchanted and haunted mountain, where in every corner magical creatures appear to tell us a story. 46 unnumbered p.; 17 x 22 cm.; Japanese Binding;
Risograph printed.

Throughout the photobook are interwoven solarigraphs from 32 pinhole cameras on the roofs of houses in the city of Oaxaca, which recorded both the path of the sun, as well as the great earthquake of 2017 that destroyed much of the state. In the story Bustamante draws an analogy between the phantom limb syndrome in which a patient, after having been amputated, continues to feel the now non-existent limb with the lingering presence of the parent long after they have passed away. Paperback.
23 x 21 cm. Sewn binding.

Eternal Sunset was developed when Son Ni was printing her book Travel - challenges of aligning the layers on the Risograph presented the artist with a flickering Sun oscillating on the page. Son says, ‘Like in the story of The Little Prince, he lives in a tiny planet, and he can watch the sunset all day long by just moving his chair’. Eternal Sunset is a poetic take of a lingering sun above the horizon, a continuous sunset in the form of a flip book. 100 unnumbered pages. 15.5 x 11 cm. Perfect binding. Risograph printing. Flip book.

Fear Indexing The X-Files is a collaborative illustrated essay from the Berlin-based artist, Steven Warwick, and the Brooklyn-based writer and art critic, Nora Khan. Khan and Warwick combed through the first 9 seasons of the television show, The X-Files, which originally aired from 1992 to 2002 with a recent reboot, to analyze how the fears in the show related to the evolving climate of fear during the Bush-Clinton Era which saw the rise of neoliberalism and the world wide web as we know it in its current form. The essay points to how the show presented fear as an inherent quality of everyday modern life. Paperback, Staple-Bound, 48 color pages, 5.25 inches x 8.25 inches, Edition of 750.

"“The material world was a place fragmented and constantly changing; this changing aspect of the universe came to be called Samara. In modern parlance, samsara refers to a place, set of objects and possessions, but originally, the word referred to a process of continuous pursuit or flow of life. In accordance with the literal meaning, the word should either refer to a continuous stream of consciousness, or the continuous but arbitrary drift of passions, desires, emotions, and experiences. To visualize or perceive this hard to grasp idea in a book structure, 12 time based images of tree and water are set in a simple dos a dos structure that can be turned forever. Through the experience of holding this tiny book in a hand and turning the pages, I want to suggest the idea that there is no beginning or ending in the nature and nothing is stationary in the world." Edition of 400. 1.75 x 1.375"; 12 pages. Miniature. Inkjet printed with hand drawn images. Modified dos-dos structure. One sheet folded to form 12 pages. Edition of 400.

The Black School, founded by artists Joseph Cuillier III and Shani Peters in 2016, is an experimental art school teaching radical Black history. The Process Deck is a tarot-style interactive methodology tool for brainstorming and designing creative activism projects. The cards are to be used in an art making capacity to help creatives, educators, and organizers explore how art can activate change on a local level. Through a series of questions and choices participants identify issues of primary significance to them, define the terms and context around those issues and design impactful projects to address them. Terms in this deck reference The Movement for Black Lives, Beautiful Trouble, Universidad de la Tierra, the Black Panther Party's 10 Point Program, various academic dictionaries, encyclopedias, and art education sources including The Tate Modern, Art21, and Armin Hofmann. Information from these sources is intermixed with the practices and working knowledge of The Black School's model, organizers, and advisors.

From the Alfa flag (in its muted version representing Marissa Alexander, sentenced for firing a warning shot at her husband when he attacked her) to the Zulu flag (representing Ousmane Zongo, unarmed but killed by a NYC officer during a 2003 warehouse raid), this list of mostly unremembered casualties represents part of the everyday reality for people of color. "Stripping the maritime alphabet of its primary colors and replacing them with muted browns and blacks, Mourning/Warning highlights the relationship of Americans of the African diaspora to water, maritime trade, and the need for an alternate means of communication in times of emergency and duress. How do you send a warning call that hatred comes constantly in waves? M/W serves as a method of honoring, mourning, and remembering the slain and wronged as well as teaching our children and ourselves to be vigilant and wary in hostile terrain, where your skin color makes you an easy target." Tia Blassingame. 8.5 x 11"; 32 pages including wrappers. Digitally printed in Josefin Sans typeface. Saddle stitch binding. Signed and numbered. Edition of 26. Crossett owns number 6.

A small Asian man, a giant white man, a house in Memphis, TN, and a cardboard cutout of Elvis – Tommy Kha’s autobiographical photography book uses a combination of bodily self-portraiture and performance to understand his complex experiences of identity and sexuality. The photographs respond to the need to hide and reveal both Kha’s Chinese ethnicity and sexuality in his hometown. Straying from heavy-handed depictions of cultural identity, he illustrates his alienation with an assemblage of visual poems that quietly capture a disruption between his projected likenesses and his own self-reflections. 80 p. Dimensions 25 x 20 cm. Paperback. Perfect Binding. Edition Size: 450. Crossett owns number 32.

Buddha’s Tears exposes the hidden story of organ harvesting in China from prisoners of conscience, such as Falun Gong practitioners. Statistical information is juxtaposed with poetic rendering of a legend of a statue of Buddha, who weeps in times of crisis. Each page is filled with dates, graphs, maps, drawings and stories, concluding with a sutured image of China, a symbol of healing. The accordion pages unravel to form a long scroll, a traditional form of storytelling. Buddha’s Tears’ thirteen tryptic pages are dense with visual and textual information. Silkscreen, letterpress and digitally printed on Somerset Book 175 g. Type is Helvetica and Heiti 10 point. Issued in an edition of 50 copies.

‘Grass, Kim Su-yong’ is a typographic artists' book in which a poem composed of letters is transformed into an image. Xianlu Yi reinterpreted a poem into the form of concrete poetry that freely constitutes the size and location of letters, and utilizing the forms of pop-up and accordion books to express the repeated rhythm of the poem in three dimensions. Kim Su-yeong is one of the most exceptional modern poets in Korea. He died at a relatively young age of 48 in 1968, but his poetry became a symbol of freedom and revolution during the democratization of Korea. His last poem ‘Grass’, was published posthumously. It can be viewed as symbolic of populist grass-roots movement interpreted the phrases from ‘Grass’ such as “lying down faster than the wind” and “rising faster than the wind,” as signifying the tenacious vitality of the masses. It can also be viewed from a humanist interpretation as a symbol of life itself. Edition of 50 copies. 11.3 x 13.5 cm. Wooden hardcover. Accordion binding. Pop up structure.

This publication documents the history of one work of Chinese artist Xu Bing, titled Phoenix. The large-in-scale installation was first commissioned by a Chinese corporation to be put in the commercial area in Beijing. The work was created from the construction wastes left from the very construction site of the commissioning corporate party. The artist found it interesting to juxtapose the leftover of capitalist development within the capital itself. The motif of the phoenix corresponds to the idea of rebirth, which the artist saw fit to the context of this commission. 1 v. (unpaged) in envelope : ill. ; 27 x 34 cm.. In Chinese and English.