Art by Film Directors

I picked this book off the footpaths of Flora Fountain and that too for less than what I pay to borrow two DVDs. I tried to articulate the experience of reading it in many ways only to be embarrass myself after knowing the amount of clichés in my jargon.

'Art by Film Directors' has been compiled / authored by Karl French, undoubtedly the least known name in the book. It features 23 filmmakers in the likes of Jan Swankmajer, Jean Cocteau, Peter Greenway, Alan Parker, Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellni, Wim Wenders, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang and their artworks—Photographs, Paintings, Illustrations, Sculptures etc. Featured above is a ‘reimagined map’ and a ‘fused creature’, both by Swankmajer.

Colors

The 73rd offering of the Quarterly that was created in 1991 by Tibor Kalman and Oliviero Toscani (who also funded the venture) is out. The issue is called MONEY and talks about all the many forms the same exists in. The magazine had gone off its provocative ways since the first few issues but nonetheless, has been bringing out well designed / compiled editions on pertinent issues dealing with human rights, value systems and various forms of discrimination.

Their website offers articles as pdf's. It will take a while to load , make sure your browsers are updated. Also, do check out the some additional info including earlier covers, here.

N.B: Michael Bierut cites Kalman and talks about a few of his interesting ways in "Thirteen ways of looking at a Typeface" posted down.

Peter Mendelsund

Peter Mendelsund is also (with reference to Chip Kidd who was featured earlier) a book designer with Knopf. I dont know if he sits next to Kidd's cabin. You could also read this interview to know him better, if that'll ease your life any bit.

Chipp Kidd

All these while I was waiting for a good reason to put a post about him in here. Not that all those book covers he designed weren't reasons good enough, but you know, I felt that an occasion of sorts is coming. And here it is. Chip Kidd was recently declared the winner in the Communications Design section of this year’s National Design Awards presented by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, which honours the best of American design since 2000. Kidd, a finalist in 2006, has been creating book jackets and covers for the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf for twenty years. His commonly found designs are 'Kafka on the Shore' (Murakami) and Osamu Tezuka's 'Buddha'-the comic series. Seen here is a part of the cover for 'Dry' by Augusten Burroughs.

Instant Light

I am reading 'Sculpting in Time'. All of you thinking 'By who' can queue up at the back door, I'll meet you individually after I am done with telling this.

Apart from wanting to watch all his films chronologically, It has also prompted me to share with you something precious I stumbled upon long back while scouting the web. A set of polaroids taken by the master! They are from 'Instant Light', a book published by Thames and Hudson compiling most of the pictures. The Guardian has a review of the same accompanied by brief commentaries written by Tarkovsky's son.

Also this is a good site if you want to spend some good hour reading/viewing things related to Tarkovsky, instead of watching cricket.

And please say hello to my sister Reshmi, whom I thank hereby for gifting me the book last year.


"...An artistic discovery occurs each time as a new and unique image of the world, a hieroglyphic of absolute truth. It appears as a revelation, as a momentary, passionate wish to grasp intuitively and at a stroke all the laws of this world - its beauty and ugliness, its compassion and cruelty, its infinity and its limitations..."
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time.