John F. Szwed: Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times of Sun Ra (1997)

“Sun Ra, a.k.a. Herman Poole “Sonny” Blount (1914–1993), has been hailed as ‘one of the great big-band leaders, pianists, and surrealists of jazz’ (New York Times) and as ‘the missing link between Duke Ellington and Public Enemy’ (Rolling Stone). Composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, poet, and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn, Sun Ra led his ‘Intergalactic Arkestra’ of thirty-plus musicians in a career that ranged from boogie-woogie and swing to be-bop, free jazz, fusion, and New Age music. This definitive biography reveals the life, philosophy, and musical growth of one of the twentieth century’s greatest avant-garde musicians.”

Publisher Pantheon Books, New York, 1997
ISBN 0679435891, 9780679435891
xviii+476+8 pages

Reviews: Brent Staples (NYT Books, 1997), Matthew Wuethrich (All About Jazz, 2003).

WorldCat

PDF (23 MB)

David Elliott (ed.): Alexander Rodchenko (1979)

The first English-language monograph on the constructivist and productivist artist and designer Alexander Rodchenko.

With essays by Alexander Lavrentiev, John Milner, Andrei Nakov, Szymon Bojko, Gail Harrison, Galina Chichagova, Zakhar Bykov, Hubertus Gassner, and historical writings by Rodchenko, Osip Brik, and Varvara Stepanova.

Published to coincide with the first retrospective exhibition of Rodchenko’s work shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 10 Feb 79 to 25 Mar 79; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 11 May 79 to 17 Jun 79; Musée d’art contemporain, Montréal, 26 Jul 79 to 2 Sep 79.

Edited and with an Introduction by David Elliott
Designed by David King
Publisher Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1979
ISBN 0905836138, 9780905836133
136 pages
via Bint Bint

WorldCat

PDF (10 MB)

Chris Kraus: I Love Dick (1997)

“In I Love Dick, Chris Kraus, author of Aliens & Anorexia, Torpor, and Video Green, boldly tore away the veil that separates fiction from reality and privacy from self-expression. It’s no wonder that I Love Dick instantly elicited violent controversies and attracted a host of passionate admirers.

The story is gripping enough: in 1994 a married, failed independent filmmaker, turning forty, falls in love with a well-known theorist and endeavors to seduce him with the help of her husband. But when the theorist refuses to answer her letters, the husband and wife continue the correspondence for each other instead, imagining the fling the wife wishes to have with Dick. What follows is a breathless pursuit that takes the woman across America and away from her husband—and far beyond her original infatuation into a discovery of the transformative power of first person narrative.

I Love Dick is a manifesto for a new kind of feminist who isn’t afraid to burn through her own narcissism in order to assume responsibility for herself and for all the injustice in world—and it’s a book you won’t put down until the author’s final acts of self-revelation and transformation.”

Publisher Semiotext(e), Los Angeles, 1997
Native Agents series
ISBN 1570270465, 9781570270468
275 pages

Review: Joan Hawkins (CTheory, 2001), Zofia Krawiec (Szum, 2016, PL).
Commentary: Tereza Stejskalová (Artalk, 2016, CZ), McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2016).
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