Bookshelf: New York's finest bookstore KARMA share their fave titles

Date
10 December 2013

Who better than to give us a well-curated selection of some of the finest books around than KARMA books, one of New York’s most well-respected art bookstores. Founded by Brendan Dugan of An Art Service this little Aladdin’s cave of knowledge and aesthetic fudge collates some of the most difficult-to-find books in the world and publishes those that must exist. Their selection is, unsurprisingly, informative and beautiful in equal measure. Check out their site to get your hands on some of these publications for yourself.

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Jean-Baptiste Bernadet: On Knowing and Not

Jean-Baptiste Bernadet: On Knowing and Not

An artist’s book by Belgian painter Jean-Baptiste with a text by John D’Agata excerpted from About a Mountain.10,000 years from now, Vega, not Polaris, will be our North Star. The space satellite Voyager, which was launched in 1979, and which has been traveling 40,000 miles per hour, will be closer to the absolute emptiness of space than it will be our home. Even the Earth’s continents, which have been migrating slowly since they initially were formed, will be 850ft farther apart.

And while we won’t be living longer than we currently are living, Frank Tipler’s book the Physics of Immortality says that if we’re wealthy we’ll be able to buy the brains of younger body donors, download our memories into their minds, and then live through them vicariously until we need another donor.

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Carol Bove: The Middle Pillar: A Retrospective Introduction

Carol Bove: The Middle Pillar: A Retrospective Introduction

In 2004 Carol Bove described her interest in what she called the provocative “shady places” of display: “a gradient that starts with a small, personal domestic object and goes through art objects, installation art, site-specific works, environments, installation design, architecture, etc.” Her use of historical objects and texts belongs to this larger project dedicated to undermining binaries, often the either/or distinctions between site-specific installations and autonomous artworks.

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Brice Marden: Book of Images, 1970

Brice Marden: Book of Images, 1970

A facsimile printing of a Brice Marden journal from 1970. An excerpt from the Journal:

The forgoing suite:
work same shapes only so I can
push differences more.
work faster
work them all together
ponder them all as group
push differences and samenesses at
same time

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Deste 2000 Words

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Deste 2000 Words

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Deste 2000 Words

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Deste 2000 Words

Deste: 2000 Words series

Conceived by Massimiliano Gioni, the Deste Foundation’s 2000 Words series gives insight into the work of some of today’s most exciting contemporary artists through the vantage point of the Dakis Joannou collection. “Collecting is, for me, is an adventure, a set of different—lived—experiences, a constant flow of meeting, talking, listening, looking. It’s an act of understanding and participating,” says Joannou. Each monograph features a critical, forthright essay and a survey of the artist’s works in this important collection. The collection of books include:

Pawel Althamer by Massimiliano Gioni
Roberto Cuoghi by Ali Subotnick
Urs Fischer by Ali Jessica Morgan
Elad Lassry by Tim Griffin
Josh Smith by Anne Pontégnie
Andro Wekua by Gary Carrion-Murayari

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Michael Bullock: Roman Catholic Jacuzzi

Michael Bullock: Roman Catholic Jacuzzi

Roman Catholic Jacuzzi is an autobiographical novella, telling the true story of the author’s accidental discovery of a secret retreat for gay Catholic priests, and the weekend that ensued.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Michael Bullock is a writer and has been actively involved in independent magazine publishing for over a decade. Upon moving to New York City he started his career at the seminal downtown publication index. He went on to establish BUTT (the revolutionary Dutch magazine for homosexuals) in America, becoming its U.S. publisher from 2004–11. Currently, he is the American features editor for the contemporary interiors magazine Apartamento, a regular contributor to the architecture and design title PIN–UP, and works on the publishing side of Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman, and PIN–UP. Roman Catholic Jacuzzi is his first published book.

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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