On the heels of the NY Art Books fair, Dan Fox at the Frieze blog profiles three small presses doing interesting things with the freedoms and constraints of indy publishing. Fox deliberately chose three presses that are each at a different stage in their lifespan. RE/SEARCH is an established punk press founded thirty-six years ago. Primary Information, which focuses on archival publications and contemporary mongraphs, has been around for ten years. And LA-based Hat & Beard just launched. Here’s Fox on the new press:
Started this year in Los Angeles by J.C. Gabel, Jessica Hundley, Brian Roettinger and Darren Romanelli, Hat & Beard have already generated an impressively beautiful list of books, with their interests ranging wide across music, art and cinema. Slash: A Punk Magazine From Los Angeles 1977–80 (one to sit on your bookshelves alongside the collected run of Search & Destroy published by RE/SEARCH) is a weighty tome that not only does beautiful justice to the LA punk publication, but includes a selection of fascinating reflections from Gary Panter, Vivien Goldman, Allan MacDonell, Kristine McKenna, and Philomena Winstanley, amongst others. Belladonna of Sadness is a sumptuous hardback, essentially a storyboard book of stills of the cult Japanese anime film of the same name, whilst Beyond the Beyond: The Music of David Lynch is essential reading for all Lynchophiles out there, the interview with composer Angelo Badalamenti worth the price of admission alone. With next year’s slated publication of Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself, the essay-book-of-the-essay-film, including updated material for 2016, Hat & Beard promise much to look forward to.