Books & Zines

From the Subtle Asian Baking community comes Modern Asian Baking at Home, must-have recipes for beloved sweet and savory treats found across Asia.

Explore new ingredients, surprising techniques, and interesting textures through lush photography and rewarding recipes that include exciting yet familiar contemporary bakes with innovative Asian twists. The results are unforgettable delights like miso-mochi brownies and spicy gochujang flourless chocolate cake. There’s even a recipe for homemade boba!

This is the perfect cookbook for anyone nostalgic for Asian desserts as well as hobbyist and avid home bakers interested in using vibrant ingredients like miso, matcha, pandan, and soy sauce to expand their repertoires. No passport is needed when you can easily create and experience popular Asian sweets and one-of-a-kind Asian-influenced drinks, custards, cakes, and frozen treats at home.

As we enter the 21st Century, China has proven to be emerging as the next super power. Fine China set off to examine the various key words around this country.

Fine China was a project started in 1997. The first edition was simply a print of a collection of re-designed porcelain ware with reference to the Chinese history and culture. The second edition became a book project, with written text that describes each piece of objects, in the format of a pseudo-art catalogue. This current third edition is a revision to the project, with four new pieces that speaks about the more recent events and political issues related to China. 

• 5.5 x 4.5 inches (14 x 11.5 cm)
• 48 pages
• Published by Hotam Press in 2021
• Open edition.

Hotam Press' modern day ABC's

Product Details:

• 5.5 x 4.5 inches (14 x 11.5 cm)
• 26 pages
• Published by Hotam Press in 2022.
• Open edition.

Mountain River Jump! is an artist duo founded in 2016 by twin sisters Huang Shan and Huang He. The duo has a variety of creative formats in art, often applying “divination consulting” as a performance to examine the potential of such art medium, and to interact with the audience at the intrinsic level. They have chosen 49 Chinese animal idioms frequently used in daily China, then illustrated for them and made them into 49 divinatory cards.

Through these 49 divinatory cards, we can see how Chinese ancestors described human's situation through animal idioms. This kind of metaphors can also be found in Zhou Yi. These 49 cards can be distributed into 7 groups, from 0 The Dragon's Nine Distinguished Sons to 48 Time Flies like A Golden Crow and Runs like A Jade Rabbit, including different stages of personal growth. For example, some of the cards are telling stories about newborn, development, fights, reflections, and rebirth.

In China, there is a long history of divination. Mountain River Jump! is using Cards of Chinese Animal Idioms to see what will come out when eastern cultural genes mix with fortunetelling in the context of the contemporary world. Meanwhile, they have strong curiosity towards human psychology and individual's narration. With their studies into Oriental mysticism and folklore, the artists pry open the topics of identity politics, labor issues, feminism, life politics, modernity and others.

 STATEMENT by Zhang Kechun

 "Carrying out this photograph project is because of the inspiration after reading the novel River of the North written by Zhang Chengzhi. Attracted by the powerful words in this novel, I decided to take a walk along the Yellow River to experience and feel the father-like broad and wide brought from this river, so that I could find the root of my soul .while along the way, the river from my mind was inundated by the stream of reality. The river, which once was full of legends, had gone and disappeared. That is kind of my profound pessimism. Nevertheless, as a vast country with a long history, its future is always bright. There is a descent in the matrix; there is her own nutrition to feed her babies; there is the power of creation to cultivate them strongly. The weak moaning finally will be drowned by the shout for joy. From this point of view, it seems, all shall be optimistic."

Size: 355mm x 260mm

Material: 114 pages, 59 color pictures, Hardcover with kraft paper jacket

Edition: 3rd Edition, second print of 1000 copies

For this book, there are two editions. One is paperback, and the other one is hardcover. A few images repeats in these two. 

Artist's statement:

This project is about elderly woman wearing facekini on the beach. Facekini is something like bikini but is covering the face.

Many people may think these images are funny. Sure, humor is a part of my intention, but it’s far from my ultimate purpose. In this project, I try to explore a kind of self-gazing with some surreal, dramatic, and humorous portraits of Chinese. This is very similar to the current situation in China, where society is full of surreal landscape. This project attempts to document these fleeting things.

These masks are hand-made by themselves, which are made of tattered vest, rag or swimsuits, and even cloth from useless pants, so you won't find one same mask on the beach.

Each facekini consists of different fabric materials. You may think it's very artistic. They will consider whether the mask goes well with their swimsuit.

In fact, they also know that others may find it ridiculous and strange. But they say the main function of facekini is for UV protection, as well as the offshore pollution in recent years. And more jellyfish attack human. It can avoid getting hurt when wearing a facekini. It also represents another layer of meaning: if you look around the beach, young girls don't wear facekini, men neither. Only middle-aged and elderly women wear mask. So, I think another reason is that these middle-aged and elderly women are ashamed of exposing their aging and deformed bodies. Wearing mask will make them much more comfortable and confident. I still don't know what these people I've photographed look like.

Author: Peng Yangjun

Format: 

150mm X 190mm X 25mm, 252 pages, paperback

 There are two editions of Facekini - paperback and hardcover. 

Artist's statement:

This project is about elderly woman wearing facekini on the beach. Facekini is something like bikini but is covering the face.

Many people may think these images are funny. Sure, humor is a part of my intention, but it’s far from my ultimate purpose. In this project, I try to explore a kind of self-gazing with some surreal, dramatic, and humorous portraits of Chinese. This is very similar to the current situation in China, where society is full of surreal landscape. This project attempts to document these fleeting things.

These masks are hand-made by themselves, which are made of tattered vest, rag or swimsuits, and even cloth from useless pants, so you won't find one same mask on the beach.

Each facekini consists of different fabric materials. You may think it's very artistic. They will consider whether the mask goes well with their swimsuit.

In fact, they also know that others may find it ridiculous and strange. But they say the main function of facekini is for UV protection, as well as the offshore pollution in recent years. And more jellyfish attack human. It can avoid getting hurt when wearing a facekini. It also represents another layer of meaning: if you look around the beach, young girls don't wear facekini, men neither. Only middle-aged and elderly women wear mask. So, I think another reason is that these middle-aged and elderly women are ashamed of exposing their aging and deformed bodies. Wearing mask will make them much more comfortable and confident. I still don't know what these people I've photographed look like.

Artist: Peng Yangjun 彭杨军

• 225mm X 330mm X 10mm,
• 80 pages
• Signed by artist

• Published by Jiazazhi
• Size：233mm x 70mm x 68mm
• Hardcover with silk-screen printing
• Box includes 3D glasses, 66 pieces of 3D cards, and a booklet
• Second edition of 1200
• Published in May 2018

Until Death Do Us Part [双喜] focuses on the unexpected role cigarettes play in Chinese weddings.

As a token of appreciation, it is customary for the bride to light a cigarette for each and every man invited. The bride and the groom are then invited to play some cigarette-smoking games of an unprecedented ingenuousness. This publication pays homage to a tradition in which love and death walk hand in hand.

These photos come from Thomas Sauvin's Beijing Silvermine project - an archive of half a million negatives salvaged over the years from a recycling plant on the outskirts of Beijing.

More on Beijing Silvermine and Thomas Sauvin

3rd Edition

Product Dimensions: 53 x 83 x 21mm

Material: Paperback, in original cigarette box, 108 pages

Publisher: Jiazazhi Press

The long-awaited cookbook from an iconic New York restaurant, revealing never-before-published recipes

AN EATER BEST COOKBOOK OF FALL 2020
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST COOKBOOK OF FALL 2020
A BALTIMORE SUN BEST COOKBOOK OF FALL 2020
A ROBB REPORT BEST COOKBOOK OF FALL 2020
A FOOD & WINE FALL 20 COOKBOOK PICK
A WSJ MAGAZINE BEST-DESIGNED ITEM

Since its humble opening in 2005, Xi’an Famous Foods has expanded from one stall in Flushing to 14 locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. CEO Jason Wang divulges the untold story of how this empire came to be, alongside the never-before-published recipes that helped create this New York City icon. From heavenly ribbons of liang pi doused in a bright vinegar sauce to flatbread filled with caramelized pork to cumin lamb over hand-pulled Biang Biang noodles, this cookbook helps home cooks make the dishes that fans of Xi’an Famous Foods line up for while also exploring the vibrant cuisine and culture of Xi’an.

Transporting readers to the streets of Xi’an and the kitchens of New York’s Chinatown, Xi’an Famous Foods is the cookbook that fans of Xi’an Famous Foods have been waiting for.

Product Details:

Detail: JOHN YUYI lilbook 2011-2015 with "face Post" cover
88 pages of Yuyi's work from 2011-2015
2017 NEW COVER version
Handmade cover

Measurement: 7cm x 5cm kawaii size

Designer: JOHN YUYI (b. 1991) is a Taiwanese visual artist based in New York City who uses the internet and social media as both the premise and platform for much of her creative work.

Detail: JOHN YUYI lilbook 2011-2015 with "face Post" cover88 pages of Yuyi's work from 2011-2015
2017 NEW COVER version
handmade cover

Measurement: 7cm x 5cm mini size

Designer: JOHN YUYI (b. 1991) is a Taiwanese visual artist based in New York City who uses the internet and social media as both the premise and platform for much of her creative work.

Fantastic Creatures of the Mountains and Seas is a new translation for contemporary readers of a classic Chinese text that is at once the geography of an ancient world, a bestiary of mythical creatures, and a book of cultural and medicinal lore. Illustrated throughout with more than 180 two-color drawings that are so sinuous they move on the page, it is a work for lovers of fantasy and mythology, ancient knowledge, fabulous beasts, and inspired art.
 
The beings cataloged within these pages come from the regions of the known world, from the mountains and seas, the Great Wastelands, and the Lands Within the Seas that became China. They include spirits and deities and all sorts of strange creatures—dragons and phoenixes, hybrid beasts, some with human features, some hideous or with a call like wood splitting, or that portend drought or flood or bounty; others whose flesh cures disease or fends off nightmares, or whose pelt guarantees many progenies.
 
Drawn from The Classic of Mountains and Seas, Fantastic Creatures is the work of two members of China's millennial generation, a young scholar and writer once known as the youngest "Genius of Chinese Cultural Studies" and an inspired illustrator trained in China and the United States, who together managed to communicate with the soul of a 4,000-year-old beast and have brought forth its strange beauty. Their work has been rendered into English by the foremost translator of modern Chinese literature in the West.

Publisher: Arcade; Illustrated edition (June 1, 2021)

Language: English

Hardcover: 376 pages

ISBN-10: 1950691381

ISBN-13: 978-1950691388

Item Weight: 1.74 pounds

Every year, the iconic luxury brand Hermès chooses a new theme to celebrate its creative direction for the upcoming year. Hermès' Year Theme for 2018 is "Let's Play," and the brand is celebrating in style with this new, deluxe pop-up book. Featuring a selection of 14 of the house's iconic square scarf designs, both old and more recent, this book brings the designs alive with exhilarating ingenuity. Delicate paper constructions bring out the depth and volume within the scarf designs; zebras rear up, delicately arching trees grow from the page and painterly strokes detach themselves from the paper surface.

Publisher: Actes Sud (November 27, 2018)

Publication date: November 27, 2018

Language: English

Hardcover: 26 pages

ISBN-10: 2330106483

ISBN-13: 978-2330106485

Dimensions : 8.58 x 1.34 x 8.54 inches

Sanmao: author, adventurer, pioneer. Born in China in 1943, she moved from Chongqing to Taiwan, Spain to Germany, the Canary Islands to Central America, and, for several years in the 1970s, to the Sahara.

Leafing through the pages of National Geographic as a young girl growing up in Taiwan, Sanmao became enchanted by the infinite and wonderous landscape of the Sahara. Years later, in 1974, she sets out for the Spanish desert territory of El Aaiún in hopes of becoming the first female explorer to cross the hauntingly beautiful expanse. Her boyfriend José would have to wait, or join her. He packs his things, leaves Madrid, and asks Sanmao to marry him.

Stories of the Sahara invites us into Sanmao's extraordinary life in the desert: her experiences of love and loss, freedom and peril, all told with a voice as spirited as it is timeless. At a period when China was beginning to look beyond its borders, Sanmao fired the imagination of millions and inspired a new generation. 

Translated by Mike Fu.

Material: Paperback

Product Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1st Edition, April 2, 2020

ISBN: 9781408881880

RongRong's Diary: Beijing East Village presents a selection of images and diary entries made by Chinese photographer RongRong (born 1968) between 1993 and 1998, within the artistic community known as Beijing East Village—now poignantly described as “a meteor in the history of contemporary Chinese art.” RongRong’s acutely composed, richly expressive images captured scenes of daily life among fellow young, aspiring artists, and created definitive documents of iconic performance works by Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming, among others. Often highly challenging works, their performances and photographs would send an instant shockwave throughout the Chinese avant-garde, and later the global art scene. Revisiting these texts and images anew for this publication, RongRong has composed a personal narrative of an artist coming into his own. Beijing East Village also serves as an invaluable firsthand record of a burgeoning artistic community, its precarious political context and the real lives behind a pivotal moment in Chinese contemporary art.

PUBLISHER: STEIDL/THE WALTHER COLLECTION, NEW YORK/THREE SHADOWS PHOTOGRAPHY ART CENTRE

BOOK FORMAT: Clth, 8.25 x 10.25 in. / 248 pgs / 124 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS: Pub Date 8/20/2019

DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2019 p. 129   

ISBN: 9783958295926

This book is an artist’s guide to copyright, written for makers. Both practical and critical, it will guide you through the concepts underlying copyright and how they apply in your practice. How do you get copyright? For what work? And for how long? How does copyright move across mediums, and how can you go about integrating the work of others? Copy This Book details the concepts of authorship and original creation that underlie our legal system, equipping the reader with the conceptual keys to participate in the debate on intellectual property today.

PUBLISHER: ONOMATOPEE

BOOK FORMAT: Paperback, 5.5 x 8 in. / 192 pgs / 4 bw / 19 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS: Pub Date 4/23/2019

DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. Exclusive

Catalog: SPRING 2019 p. 139   

PRODUCT DETAILS: ISBN 9789491677939

The moon has long furnished humankind with an artistic icon, an image of longing and object of scientific inquiry. Encompassing art, film, literature, architecture, design, natural history and historical objects, and published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing (July 20, 1969), The Moonsurveys the iconography of the moon, from Romantic landscape paintings to space-age art. It takes the 1969 landing as a thematic fulcrum and a culmination of the deep-rooted cultural conceptions invested in the space race in the 1960s, from David Bowie to Disney.

The book also accounts for the science of the moon throughout the ages, from Galileo to NASA, addressing the many lunar myths that have existed throughout time. Also explored here is moonlight, an important theme in the Romantic nocturnal landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich, J.C. Dahl and Carl Julius von Leypold. Another powerful artistic genealogy is associated with science fiction, a genre that has on occasion influenced space programs: Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865), for instance, famously inspired NASA's Apollo programs. Film pioneers such as Georges Méliès and Fritz Lang created cinematic lunar voyages, and in the 1930s, surrealist artists such as Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst explored the moonlit landscape as psychological allegory. Later, during the Cold War, superpowers on both sides of the Iron Curtain worked closely with artists to orchestrate and interpret the space race: Robert Rauschenberg, for example, was one of eight artists invited by NASA to witness Apollo 11, while artists in the Soviet Union played a central role in building the cult of the cosmonaut.

The Moon looks at all these lunar themes and myths, in a thrilling and inspirational gathering for anyone who has felt the moon's pull on their imagination.

PUBLISHER: LOUISIANA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

BOOK FORMAT: Hardcover, 8.5 x 10.25 in. / 128 pgs / 150 color / 50 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS: Pub Date 10/23/2018

DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2018 p. 5   

ISBN: 9788793659087

First published in French in 1994, quickly acclaimed as a photobook classic and since republished and enhanced, True Stories returns for the sixth time, gathering a series of short autobiographical texts and photos by acclaimed French artist Sophie Calle, this time with four new tales. Calle's projects have frequently drawn on episodes from her own life, but this book―part visual memoir, part meditation on the resonances of photographs and belongings―is as close as she has come to producing an autobiography, albeit one highly poetical and fragmentary, as is characteristic of her work. The tales―never longer than a page―are by turns lighthearted, humorous, serious, dramatic or cruel. Each is accompanied by an image; each offers a fragment of life.

The slim, portable volume is divided into sections: the first is composed of various reflections on objects such as a shoe, a postcard or "the breasts"; the second, "The Husband," of recollections of episodes from Calle's first marriage; and the third gathers a variety of autobiographical recollections. Calle herself is the author, narrator and protagonist of her stories and photography; her words are somber, chosen precisely and carefully. One of the 21st century's foremost artists, Calle here offers up her own story―childhood, marriage, sex, death―with brilliant humor, insight and pleasure.

PUBLISHER: ACTES SUD

BOOK FORMAT: Hardcover, 4 x 7.5 in. / 112 pgs / 51 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS: Pub Date 5/22/2018

DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2018 p. 40   

ISBN: 9782330093037 

Ellen Lupton, award-winning author of Thinking with Type and How Posters Work, demonstrates how storytelling shapes great design

Good design, like good storytelling, brings ideas to life. The latest book from award-winning writer Ellen Lupton is a playbook for creative thinking, showing designers how to use storytelling techniques to create satisfying graphics, products, services and experiences. Whether crafting a digital app or a data-rich publication, designers invite people to enter a scene and explore what’s there. An intriguing logo, page layout or retail space uses line, shape and form to lead users on dynamic journeys.

Design Is Storytelling explores the psychology of visual perception from a narrative point of view. Presenting dozens of tools and concepts in a lively, visual manner, this book will help any designer amplify the narrative power of their work. Use this book to stir emotions, build empathy, articulate values and convey action; to construct narrative arcs and create paths through space; integrate form and language; evaluate a project’s storytelling power; and to write and deliver strong narratives.

Ellen Lupton is the author of numerous books on design, including Graphic Design: The New Basics (2008), Thinking with Type (2004, second edition 2010), Graphic Design Thinking (2011), Beautiful Users: Designing for People (2014) and Type on Screen (2014), How Posters Work(2015) and Beauty―Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2016). She is Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in Baltimore. She received the AIGA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 2007.

Material: Paperback, 160 pages

Publisher: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (November 21, 2017)

Language: English

ISBN-13: 978-1942303190

Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches