Dear powerHouse follower—
You are, with any luck, a retailer, a reviewer, a promoter, or just someone vigorously involved in the visual arts, and have been following us through our varied publications over the years and the copious press we made with them, and perhaps recall the risks, the successes, maybe even the élan to which we aspired in bringing to market interesting artists’ visual ideas and narratives in this lonely practice of independent illustrated book publishing…
You have witnessed many changes over the years: you’ve seen us produce era-defining tomes of urban culture, fashion, portraiture, and historic monographs; you perhaps saw us evolve from being simply an American illustrated book publisher to one incorporating a visual space bringing books to life (first in that rat haven Hudson Square area and now at the cavernous Arena on the dynamic Brooklyn waterfront). But that all pales in some ways to what is coming next.powerHouse is going to Random House. More precisely, the pH back end—warehouse services and sales representation to the book and specialty trades—will be unified for the first time under the awesome forces belonging to the last and greatest storied pantheon of conglomerate trade publishing on the planet. What does that mean? We might be doing more trade-like items—might—but more likely, we will be teaching our corporate compatriots how to hand-sell and hand-promote compelling visual books like ours, and in turn learn from them how to best position and leverage these beautiful books’ publication for the widest possible exposure to trade, academic, non-trade, and niche markets in ways we may never have known possible.
It’s a wonderful new world in these strange times; we intend to make the most of it. Please join us.
Interesting powerHouse news
Haiku in my Neighborhood (M. Hanks Gallery, 2009)
Haiku in my Neighborhood. Poems by Dee Dee McNeil, photographs by Roland Charles, M. Hanks Gallery, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9821810-1-0, $25.00.
(Pages from the book are viewable at Google Books online.)
Haiku in my Neighborhood – a coffee table book of 50 haiku poems written by jazz singer/songwriter Dee Dee McNeil with photographs by noted photographer-artist and arts activist Roland Charles. The haiku poems were matched to the photographs creating a unique language and visual experience.
The Erotic Diary of a Lumberjack by Barthélémy Toguo (Michael Woolworth Editions, Paris, 2010)
The Erotic Diary of a Lumberjack” (”Le Journal Érotique d’un Bûcheron”). artist’s book by Barthélémy Toguo with 12 linocuts and texts, 38 x 26.5 cm, Michael Woolworth Editions, Paris, 1000€.
Angaza Afrika: African Art Now (Laurence King, 2009)
Angaza Afrika: African Art Now. Chris Spring, Laurence King, 350 colour illustrations,256 x 226mm, 336 pages, paperback, ISBN – 978 1 85669 548 0, £25.
Angaza Afrika: African Art Now, by Chris Spring and published by Laurence King brings together more than 60 of Africa’s most creative contemporary artists, drawn from across the African continent as well as from Europe, North America, the Caribbean and South America.
Winner of The Art Book Award 2009
The mission of this book is to illustrate Africa’s immensely fertile artistic landscape. Africa has emerged from its colonial past and is asserting its own identity. African art is not only confined to the continent itself, but has spread world-wide through the work of those descended from the enforced migrations of the slave trade and those who have more recently left their homes in Africa to take their place on an international stage.
Judges’ comments:
The Editorial Board of The Art Book and the Association of Art Historians have announced Angaza Afrika as the winner of The Art Book Award 2009. Angaza Afrika: African Art Now provides a feast for the eye, matching extensive colour illustrations with clear, contemporary book design. With a wealth of information on lesser-known artists and practices, this book makes a much-needed and valuable addition to resources on the diverse visual cultures of Africa. All in all, an appealing and accessible publication which highlights the complexities, richness and vibrancy of contemporary African art.
Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot” (Temple, 2010)
Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot”. Edited by Deborah Willis. Temple University Press, 288p, ISBN 978-1-4399-0205-9, $34.95.
Publishers Weekly Jan 4 2010 review:
Her name was Sarah Baartman. Born in South Africa in 1789, she died in Paris in 1815—after five years of being displayed (sometimes in a cage) for entertainment and “scientific study”; her pickled buttocks and genitalia remained on public display at the Musée de l’Homme until 1974 and her remains were finally returned to South Africa in 2002. During her period of fame and exploitation, she was known as the “Hottentot Venus.” Willis (Posing Beauty) offers a comprehensive, inclusive, and coherently organized anthology that embraces “scholarly and lyrical, historical and reflexive” responses to Baartman, as a woman, as a black woman, as an object, as an icon, as an inspiration to creative artists, and as a catalyst to scholars. The book moves from Baartman’s life and times to an assessment of the figure of the “Hottentot Venus” in contemporary art and a broader consideration of the historic public display of black women. Appended is a photo gallery that is as essential and diverse as the texts. This remarkable volume satisfies the academic reader with scholarly essays and moves the general reader with its creative expression, making it fascinating and accessible to any one. (Mar.)
