Books

Jonathan Allen

Untitled

Jonathan Allen’s collages and paintings combine pop imagery, abstraction and propaganda to reflect the contradictions of our current cultural and political climate. His various media—oil/acrylic, pen and ink, pencil, and newspaper and magazine cuttings—sometimes coalesce in formal harmony, though more often they serve to diagram the breakdowns triggered by irreconcilable clashes in perspective. If culture is a language of forces operating in mixed agreement—desire, ethics, history, money, power—then the unlikely fusions in Allen’s work represent a resonant voice in the conversation of who we are now. That Allen achieves this without sacrificing either aesthetic pleasure or contextual intelligibility is a credit to his resourcefulness and care, allowing for a dense and eccentric vision that lays bare our culture’s often jagged and convoluted messages.

Jonathan Allen grew up in a family of nine in Georgia. In high school he won a scholarship to study painting in New York and now holds a BA in visual arts and art history from Columbia University. He participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space residency program and in The Bronx Museum of Art’s Artist in the Marketplace program, and has exhibited at numerous galleries in New York, including Caren Golden Fine Art, Oliver Kamm/5BE, PS122 and Exit Art. His work recently entered the Microsoft Art Collection and in 2009 was exhibited at Wonderland Art Space, Copenhagen. In 2008, Jonathan Allen was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. He lives and works in Brooklyn and Queens, New York.

Adam Courtney

Box Project: Series I

Adam Courtney's work involves constructing environments; sometimes those environments become part of a photograph involving models, sometimes they remain the final product. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Anne Beck

state

state began with whimsical pictures & apocalyptic visions of a high-tech synthetic mechanized culture. It became loose social history & critique. The original manuscript is a handmade artist’s book made of casein, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, ink, graphite, collaged bits of etching & drypoint on watercolor paper, and bound in found printed suede. Anne Beck sees her work as a visual journal inspired by latent structures, indiscernible figures, forms that wax and wane, and images and thoughts that coalesce and dissipate. Underlying her work is a belief that the personal and universal are not quite mutually exclusive, a reality that is vital to our ability to communicate and connect.

Chris O. Cook

To Lose & to Pretend

“[Cook's book] is evidence of a fine mind at work, a collection of poems that never settles for the obvious. His work probes the apathy and alienation of his generation, wielding poetics like a cudgel to extract the essential from the incoherence of pop culture vapidity that we have accepted as our metaphor. Startlingly honest, unafraid of humor, these poems force you to sit down and take notice.”
— Cheeni Rao

Greg Slick

Between Scylla and Charybdis: the Art of Greg Slick

“The beauty of the photography and paintings of Greg Slick is like that of his words. They contain the essence of wit, unique insights into today’s society, and always a kind of humor. It’s a wonderful combination.”
— Minako Yoshino, Artist

Greg Slick was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1961. His work has been exhibited worldwide, from New York City to Tallinn, Estonia to Tokyo, Japan. The tension between documentation and representation is central to Slick's painting, photography, and experimental sculpture. In 2003, Slick formed the collective Quinn the Eskimo, curating group exhibitions under its banner. He is currently an Owner/Director of the artist-owned gallery GO NORTH: A Space for Contemporary Art in Beacon, New York. He lives and works in New York City and Beacon, New York.

Emanuel de Cordova

Letters from a Pugilist Poet

"It's Rilke with splashes of Denis Johnson, Issa, even a bit of New York School. It's difficult to pin down. Hard-nosed but contemplative and elegant, a virtuoso performance by a poet who dances about in calculated withdraws and attacks."
— The Daily Press

Emanuel de Cordova lives in Florida and New York.

Joe Millar

Autobiomythography & Gallery

“Joe Millar’s Autobiomythography & Gallery is the best new book of poetry read by this reviewer this year. It is incredibly strong.”
—Matt Soucy, reviewing for Coldfront Magazine

Joe Millar is a poet, novelist, and installation artist living in New York City. He received an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has published his work in such journals as Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Greensboro Review, Literal Latte and other journals. The manuscript constituting this first book of poems was shortlisted for the Yale Younger Poets prize, the National Poetry Series, and the Academy of American Poets' Walt Whitman Award.