Aldo Bakker’s Book List
My list consists of a selection of books that were important to me at the time I discovered them and in a way still are. As an autodidact, I have used these books over and over again to study design. They had a huge influence on my education.
I tend to be quite selective when buying books. When I love the work of an artist but do not like the way the book is designed I don’t buy it. I am convinced that the design of the book should always interact with the content.
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Wholeness: there is no boundary between big and small, between technique, function, gesture, rhythm—they all inspire each other equally, everything is treated with the same amount of effort and complexity. I am always very impressed by Scarpa’s work and TOTO has managed to present it in the most complete and beautiful manner.
The books and projects of Kenya Hara are intensely beautiful. He gives so much attention to every single element: the photography, the paper, the graphic design. This book is so consistent and convincing that it pulls you into a completely different world.
Sanaa interprets and purifies the normal and the actual in such a way that it defines a new, almost floating architecture. The tone of the book reflects the identity of this firm very well. The book is so densely filled that you keep feeling the need to dive into it again and again in the hope of discovering something new.
Introduces Miralles’s highly personal form of language, complex and rich in form and composition. On many points the book is incomprehensible, but it still continues to attract me and pose questions. I used to have a weakness for El Croquis publications, as they present an overload of information and good, new photography.
Ron Mueck must have a deep interest in people and care about them greatly to be able to create such intimate, strange yet familiar sculptures. This book discloses Mueck’s process of making, but, remarkably, this doesn’t interfere at all with the poetry of the work. Instead, it only intensifies the experience.
A book with sublime forms and new findings. It shows a thorough understanding of nature, not by imitating it but by expressing it in a highly personal visual language. The editors managed to capture a true experience of the Finnish artist and designer and his work by using photographs made by Wirkkala, by photographing his trained and experienced hands, and by including sketches and technical drawings. The graphic design and text editing were done by Juhani Pallasmaa.
Hans den Hartog Jager is an inspired and ambitious Dutch art critic who is not afraid to take a position. I read his reviews and interviews like a detective. Hans is able to describe the mystical as well as sensual sides of art and design—something that not many other critics seem to do.
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Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976–1986 by Andrew Blauvelt
Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976–1986
by Andrew Blauvelt
Publisher: Cranbrook Art Museum
Published: June 1, 2018
Explores the printed matter—posters, flyers, zines, and album covers—produced by and for the punk and post-punk music scenes in the United States and UK. Printed as a special, oversized, 52-page color newspaper, the catalogue has been published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name, curated by Andrew Blauvelt, on view at the Cranbrook Art Museum through October 7, 2018.
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