Art Guide Bookstore On Their Top Recommendations

Bringing a pop-up Bookstore to Melbourne Art Fair next week, the Art Guide Bookstore team suggest their must-buy books, all available for purchase at the Fair.

Renee So, Provenance
Publisher: Monash University Publishing

Working across ceramics and textiles, Renee So draws inspiration from a constellation of eclectic touchstones that traverse time and space. One particular reference point are Bellarmine (German for bearded man) stoneware jugs c.1550-1700 that can be found interpreted in many of So’s knitted paintings and ceramic objects.

So’s engagement with art history and artefacts is underpinned by cross-cultural thinking and a feminist worldview.

Surveying over a decade of So’s practice, Provenance the exhibition was held at MUMA in 2023. Viewing the exhibition in the flesh was a personal highlight. The accompanying publication is beautifully designed with insightful contributions from historian of archaeology Hélène Maloigne, academic and curator Chus Martínez, poet and editor Emily Berry, and Renee So in conversation with MUMA director and curator Charlotte Day.

John Nixon, Editions 1 & 2
Publisher: Negative Press

Editions 1 & 2 shines a spotlight on the printmaking activities of the much loved late John Nixon and features thoughtful and generous contributions from Sue Cramer, Lizzie Boon, and Trent Walter.

Spanning a 40 year period from 1982 – 2021, this archive provides insight into an important, yet lesser-known aspect of Nixon’s wide-ranging and vast oeuvre.
Nixon’s approach to printmaking is one of experimentation and dedication. In trademark reductive style, a range of printmaking techniques including woodblock, etching, and monotype resourcefully utilise everyday materials. By transforming the discarded and overlooked (plastic meat trays, newspapers, the humble potato) from ‘something that is not really wanted into something that is wanted’ suggests a joyous enthusiasm with endless possibilities. This is the material of a life well lived with art.

Lisa Radford, Jarrod Rawlins, Jon Campbell
Publisher: Uplands

Published in 2010, Jon Campbell by Lisa Radford and Jarrod Rawlins might now be considered an ‘oldie but a goodie’. Friends, colleagues, and former students join in to tell the tale.

To immerse oneself in Jon Campbell’s world is to catch the vernacular, the street signs, the slogans, the back yards, the beach, the surf, the car, the travel, the people, the community, the songs, the set-lists, the music, the painting, the print, the performance, the installation, the colour, the edges, the layers, the teaching, the attitude, the spirit, the love.

65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen.

By Jane O’Sullivan

Jahnne Pasco-White, Kin

Publisher: Art Ink and Unlikely

Jahnne Pasco-White: Kin documents the artist’s pre- and post-pregnancy paintings and drawings, alongside a dozen essayists who interrogate the limits and possibilities of kinship. Edited by N.A.J. Taylor, the book includes original essays by Jessica Bridgfoot, Helen Johnson, Maya Hey, Redi Koobak, Umut Ozguc, Amelia Wallin, Abbra Kotlarczyk, Jennifer Mae Hamilton, Tara McDowell, Kate Wright, Stefanie Fishel and Jan Bryant.