Alex Steinweiss

Alex Steinweiss, written by Kevin Reagan and published by Taschen, is a comprehensive monograph devoted to the man who was, as the subtitle puts it, The Inventor Of The Modern Album Cover. The book (whose cover and endpapers resemble a 78rpm record sleeve) was written with Steinweiss' full collaboration, and it was published just a few months before he died.

Steinweiss was working for Columbia Records when he designed an illustrated cover for their 1940 Richard Rogers album Smash Song Hits. In The Art Of The Album Cover, Richard Evans calls Steinweiss "the inventor of the individual album cover," and Nick de Ville's more comprehensive book on the same subject, Album, notes that the 1940 Steinweiss sleeve "resulted in the launch of illustrated covers for albums".

Taschen's book is the definitive study of Steinweiss and his work, with many full-page reproductions of his record covers and other examples of graphic design. (His 1942 Beethoven's Emperor concerto cover "may well have inspired" Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon.) It also includes a lengthy essay by Steven Heller, Visualizing Music. (An earlier book on Steinweiss, For The Record by Jennifer McKnight-Trontz, also has an introduction by Heller.)

Radio Times Guide To Films 2017

The comprehensive film guide is a concept that unfortunately seems antiquated in the age of the IMDb. Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide ceased publication in 2014. The Time Out Film Guide ended in 2012. Halliwell's Film Guide died an undignified death in 2008 as The Movies That Matter. The Virgin Film Guide finished in 2005. That leaves the Radio Times Guide To Films as the last remaining film guide, and its 2017 edition was published this month. (VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever is also published annually, though it's restricted to films released on video formats.)

The Radio Times Guide To Films 2017, edited by Sue Robinson, follows the same format as its recent editions, with a vintage cover photograph (in this case, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial) presumably chosen to appeal to its older target demographic. (The traditional Barry Norman endorsement on the cover is an even more clear indication that the intended audience is 'of a certain age'.) It's increasingly surprising that there remains a market for the Radio Times Guide To Films, especially as longer versions of its capsule reviews are available on the Radio Times website, though long may it continue.

This year's edition has 1,712 pages, exactly the same number as last year's edition. 24,039 film reviews are included, slightly more than last year's 24,017. There are 504 new entries (including more than 90 previews), meaning that many older titles have been deleted in order to maintain the same pagination. The total number of reviews is creeping up each year: there were 23,068 in 2012, 23,077 in 2013, and 23,099 in 2014.

New reviews this year include The Hateful Eight ("an immoral western frontier explodes in typical Tarantino, blood-spattered fashion"), The Jungle Book ("finds magic and wonder in the CGI-enabled action"), Independence Day: Resurgence ("the story runs out of steam"), Listen To Me Marlon ("a terrific tapestry of a great star's life"), and Hitchcock/Truffaut ("too much awe and not enough insight"). The book is impressively up-to-date, with reviews of films such as Bridget Jones's Baby that are still on general release.

100 Diagrams That Changed The World

100 Diagrams That Changed The World, by Scott Christianson, features 100 diagrams, drawings, and charts from the Chauvet Caves to the iPod patent. Each diagram is reproduced as a full-page illustration, alongside a single-page summary of its history and significance. The book has no references or bibliography, though it's interesting because it includes examples of patent diagrams and other technical drawings that are missing from conventional histories of design.

The 100 diagrams include Renaissance icons such as Copernicus' heliocentric representation of the solar system, Leonardo's Vitruvian Man ("one of the most widely reproduced artistic images"), and an anatomical drawing from Andreas Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica ("one of the great achievements in the history of printing"). The book also includes the first examples of bar charts and line graphs (both created by William Playfair), Venn diagrams (John Venn), tree diagrams (Porphyry), flow charts (Frank and Lillian Gilbreth), pictograms (Michael George Mulhall), and emoticons (Puck magazine).

The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information, by Edward R Tufte, is the standard text on graph and chart design; Tufte praises Joseph Minard's representation of Napoleon's Russian campaign as "the best statistical graphic ever drawn," though it's not included in 100 Diagrams. The Book Of Trees is a history of tree diagrams. Cartographies Of Time is a comprehensive history of timelines. Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519 has the most extensive selection of Leonardo's drawings. The Story Of Emoji discusses the development of emoticons. Pictograms, Icons, & Signs traces the evolution of pictograms. Information Graphics and Understanding The World feature contemporary and historical infographics. The BBC4 series The Beauty Of Diagrams profiled six influential diagrams, all of which are included in this book.

Twentieth-Century Jewellery

Twentieth-Century Jewellery: From Art Nouveau To Contemporary Design In Europe & The United States, by Alba Cappellieri, surveys jewellery from the 1890s to the first decade of the 21st century. Its plates section features 300 colour photographs (with many full-page images) of jewellery from museums and private collections, including masterpieces such as Faberge's Imperial Coronation Egg and Cartier's Panthere brooch. An extensive bibliography lists jewellery books published since 1923.

The book begins with a fifty-page essay on the development of jewellery design since 1900, which focuses on Europe (especially Italy; it was published in Italian as Gioielli Del Novocento) and America, though also briefly mentions Russia and Japan. Cappellieri cites the pave secret, serti mysterieux technique of Van Cleef & Arpels as "one of the most important innovations in the history of twentieth-century jewellery".

Cappellieri also discusses "the transitions between jewellery and the arts: design, architecture and fashion". This cultural context is sometimes excessive (for example, a full-page reproduction of a Giacomo Balla painting "that beautifully sums up the period between 1929 and the end of the Second World War. On 24 October 1929, which was a Thursday, the Dow Jones index crashed...").

Nevertheless, Twentieth-Century Jewellery is a comprehensive survey of modern jewellery, featuring jewels from a wider range of sources than other books on the subject. H Clifford Smith wrote Jewellery, the first comprehensive jewellery history, in 1908. A History Of Jewellery 1100-1870 (Joan Evans, 1953) is the other standard work. Modern Jewellery: An International Survey 1890-1963 (Graham Hughes, 1963) was the first guide to modern jewellery design. 7,000 Years Of Jewellery (Hugh Tait, 1986) is the most comprehensive international history of jewellery.

Allergic Realities

An exhibition of new works by Kosit Juntaratip opened last weekend in Bangkok. Allergic Realities features eighteen paintings of iconic news photographs, replicating the grainy printing process traditionally used by newspapers. Kosit has used his own blood to paint the halftone dots.

One of the paintings (Thammasat Hanging) is based on the notorious Neal Ulevich photograph of a public lynching following the 1976 Thammasat University protest. The photo was also appropriated by Manit Sriwanichpoom for Horror In Pink (ปีศาจสีชมพู), featuring Manit's trademark 'Pink Man' as an incongruous spectator. Vasan Sitthiket's Blue October (ตุลาลัย) series included a version of the photograph painted in mournful blue, with gold leaf to honour the hanged man, and the sarcastic title This Is the Buddhism Country (นี่แหละหนอเมืองพระพุทธศาสนา). The two central figures appear in silhouette in Sitthiphorn Anthawonksa's Death of Book (ศพหนังสือ), shown at the Art for Freedom (ศิลปะเพื่อเสรีภาพ) exhibition at the Pridi Banomyong Institute in 2013. Sutee Kunavichayanont carved it into a wooden desk for his History Class (ห้องเรียนประวัติศาสตร์) installation. The image even featured on the cover of Holiday in Cambodia, a single by the Dead Kennedys (ironically, given the song's title).

Another Thai artist, Pornprasert Yamazaki, has also painted with blood; his work was shown at the Swallow, Currency Crisis, and Suicide Mind exhibitions. Manit Sriwanichpoom soaked autopsy photographs in blood for Died On 6th October 1976. UDD protesters painted a banner in blood at Democracy Monument, and Kristian von Hornsleth collected Thai blood samples for his Deep Storage Art Project.

Kosit previously painted with blood during performances in the 1990s (as documented in Thailand Eye), and he has also used other bodily fluids as a medium: his painting Copulate With Love (at MAIIAM) is labelled "Ejaculation on canvas (Kosit's spermatozoa)". Allergic Realities opened at Bangkok University Gallery on 17th September, and runs until 30th October.

Charlie Hebdo

Charlie Hebdo is being sued by the Italian town of Amatrice, after the French newspaper published a cartoon by Felix Moureau mocking the victims of an earthquake that decimated the town. A lawsuit against the newspaper has been filed on behalf of the town council. (The newspaper has previously been sued for blasphemy, though that case was ultimately dismissed.)

230 residents of Amatrice were killed in last month's earthquake. On 31st August, Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon comparing the victims to pasta dishes. The cartoon was criticised as deeply insensitive, and Charlie Hebdo faced similar criticism last year when it printed cartoons of Alan Kurdi. The newspaper first caused controversy in 2006, with its front-page cartoon of Mohammed.

A dozen Charlie Hebdo staff were killed in a terrorist attack last January, and the newspaper responded defiantly with another front-page Mohammed caricature. Its offices were firebombed in 2011, after it published a Charia Hebdo issue guest-edited by Mohammed. In 2012, it printed a cartoon of Mohammed naked. In 2013, it produced a comic-strip biography of Mohammed titled La Vie De Mahomet (parts 1 and 2), followed by an expanded edition. In 2014, it published a front-page cartoon of Mohammed being beheaded by an Islamic State terrorist.

Bangkok Screening Room

A new independent cinema, Bangkok Screening Room, will open next week. The venue, in Silom, will have a 4k projector and fifty seats. Its inaugural programme includes both Thai and Hollywood classics.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ) will be shown on 23rd to 25th, 27th, 28th, 30th September; and 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th to 9th October. Carol Reed’s The Third Man, starring Orson Welles, will be screened on 22nd, 24th, 25th, 29th September; and 1st, 4th October. Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla (ゴジラ), which played at the 22nd Open Air Film Festival, is on 5th, 8th, 30th September; and 2nd, 5th October. Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo will be shown on 6th, 8th, 11th, 20th, 22nd, 25th, 27th, and 30th October.

The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time

The 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time, by Frank Schnelle and Andreas Thiemann, is ambitiously subtitled The List To End All Lists. The authors have studied film lists from the past decade (many of which are featured on Dateline Bangkok), which they "collected, combined and, in the end, condensed... into one meta-list."

The 100 Greatest Movies are as follows:

1. Citizen Kane
2. The Godfather
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Blade Runner
5. Apocalypse Now
6. Pulp Fiction
7. Taxi Driver
8. Some Like It Hot
9. Casablanca
10. Singin' In The Rain
11. Chinatown
12. Vertigo
13. Psycho
14. Lawrence Of Arabia
15. The Godfather II
16. Seven Samurai
17. Rear Window
18. Raging Bull
19. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
20. North By Northwest
21. The Third Man
22. Jaws
23. M
24. Dr Strangelove
25. A Clockwork Orange
26. GoodFellas
27. The Searchers
28. Gone With The Wind
29. Sunset Boulevard
30. Alien
31. Tokyo Story
32. Schindler's List
33. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
34. It's A Wonderful Life
35. The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
36. The Wizard Of Oz
37. Once Upon A Time In The West
38. The Apartment
39. Annie Hall
40. The Lord Of The Rings I: The Fellowship Of The Ring
41. Fight Club
42. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
43. All About Eve
44. City Lights
45. Rashomon
46. The 400 Blows
47. The Matrix
48. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
49. 8½
50. The Rules Of The Game
51. Breathless
52. Battleship Potemkin
53. The Wild Bunch
54. Bicycle Thieves
55. The Shawshank Redemption
56. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
57. Touch Of Evil
58. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans
59. The General
60. Metropolis
61. On The Waterfront
62. The Night Of The Hunter
63. Back To The Future
64. The Big Lebowski
65. La Dolce Vita
66. Modern Times
67. The Silence Of The Lambs
68. Amelie
69. Nashville
70. Saving Private Ryan
71. The Shining
72. Double Indemnity
73. Grand Illusion
74. Andrei Rublev
75. Blue Velvet
76. The Seventh Seal
77. Fargo
78. The Deer Hunter
79. American Beauty
80. Terminator II: Judgment Day
81. The Gold Rush
82. Forrest Gump
83. LA Confidential
84. The Dark Knight
85. Les Enfants Du paradis
86. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
87. Gladiator
88. City Of God
89. Bringing Up Baby
90. Aguirre: The Wrath Of God
91. The Maltese Falcon
92. The Leopard
93. Persona
94. Reservoir Dogs
95. Fanny & Alexander
96. L'Avventura
97. Bonnie & Clyde
98. Die Hard
99.The Usual Suspects
100. Once Upon A Time In America

[The book was first published in German, as Die 100 Besten Filme Aller Zeiten (2007). Note that Some Like It Hot is the 1959 Billy Wilder comedy, and The Maltese Falcon is the 1941 John Huston thriller.]

Controversies

Controversies: A Legal & Ethical History Of Photography is an English translation of Controverses by Daniel Girardin and Christian Pirker. Controverses was originally published in Switzerland in 2008.

In his essay Beyond Appearances, Pirker discusses "the photographs that you will not see in this book." Sally Mann "refuses to exhibit or reproduce" her portrait of her daughter, Candy Cigarette (1989). Thomas Condon was convicted of "disturbing the peace of the dead" in 2001 after photographing corpses in a Cincinnati morgue, and his photographs cannot be published. Finally, Jackie Onassis won an injunction against a Dior advertisement photographed by Richard Avedon (1983) featuring her lookalike; "This ruling still remains in force", according to Pirker, though the photo was reprinted in Contested Culture (2000; by Jane M Gaines).

Unsurprisingly, there are three photographs from the Swiss edition of Controverses that are not present in the English version. Graham Ovenden was convicted of indecent assault in 2013, and his nude photograph of Maude Hewes (1984) was removed. [It was included in the Channel 4 documentary For The Sake Of The Children (28th August 1997) and in issue sixteen of Gauntlet magazine (1998).] The nude portrait of Brooke Shields by Garry Gross (1975) was also omitted, as it was deemed illegal by UK police following the Pop Life exhibition. Irena Ionesco's full-frontal portrait of her daughter (1970) has been replaced by a topless portrait of her (1978).

Fashion 150

Fashion 150: 150 Years / 150 Designers, edited by Arianna Piazza, is an encyclopedic guide to fashion designers and trends. Originally published in Italian (titled Moda: Storie & Stili) it covers 150 years of fashion design, beginning with Charles Frederick Worth, "the first couturier". The book is as physically substantial as its contents, with more than 500 pages printed on heavy stock, coloured edges, and a thick dust jacket.

Coco Chanel's petite robe noir ("the little black dress that gave rise to the Chanel legend") and two-tone suit ("the magnum opus of a lifetime; it is the perfect garment") are included, as is the 'New Look' created by Christian Dior: "Dior showed his first collection and the world stopped to marvel. It was one of the most important fashion moments in history."

The Thames & Hudson Dictionary Of Fashion & Fashion Designers and The Fashion Book both profile more designers, though they have capsule-style entries whereas Fashion 150 has more depth. The three-volume Encyclopedia Of Clothing & Fashion (edited by Valerie Steele) is the most comprehensive, though Fashion 150 is more up-to-date and has better illustrations.

All The President's Men

The fortieth anniversary edition of All The President's Men includes an afterword (originally published in The Washington Post) discussing President Richard Nixon's legacy: "Nixon launched and managed five successive and overlapping wars - against the anti-Vietnam War movement, the news media, the Democrats, the justice system, and, finally, against history itself. All reflected a mindset and a pattern of behavior that were uniquely and pervasively Nixon's: a willingness to disregard the law for political advantage, and a quest for dirt and secrets about his opponents as an organizing principle of his presidency."

In 1972, Nixon's 'White House plumbers' broke into the Democratic National Committee's Washington headquarters in the Watergate building. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's coverage of the Watergate scandal remains arguably the most significant story in the history of journalism, as it ultimately led to Nixon's resignation.

Nixon insisted "I am not a crook" (at a press conference on 17th November 1973), though he resigned in a live broadcast on 8th August 1974: "because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require... Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow."

Nixon's conspiracy to obstruct the FBI's investigation into Watergate was revealed by the infamous 'smoking gun' tape released on 5th August 1974 after a Supreme Court ruling. On the tape, recorded in the Oval Office on 23rd June 1972, Nixon says: "they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case, period." (I first listened to it at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California, shortly after Nixon's death.)

The Essentials

The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies & Why They Matter, by Jeremy Arnold, is a guide to "fifty-two must-see movies from the silent era through the early 1980s." The fifty-two films, representing one per week for a year, were selected from TCM's The Essentials series.

Each director is represented by a single listed film, except Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, who deservedly have two and three films each, respectively. Whereas most film lists include recent titles, this has no films from the last thirty years. Also unusually for a list-based book, it features an extensive bibliography.

The Must-See Movies are as follows:

• Metropolis
  
• All Quiet On The Western Front
  
• City Lights
  
• Grand Hotel
  
• King Kong
  
• Duck Soup
  
• It Happened One Night
  
• The Thin Man
  
• Bride Of Frankenstein
  
• Swing Time
  
• Mr Smith Goes To Washington
  
• Gone With The Wind
  
• The Lady Eve
  
• Citizen Kane
  
• Now Voyager
  
• Casablanca
  
• Double Indemnity
  
• Meet Me In St. Louis
  
• Leave Her To Heaven
  
• The Best Years Of Our Lives
  
• Out Of The Past
  
• The Red Shoes
  
• Bicycle Thieves
  
• The Third Man
  
• White Heat
  
• Adam's Rib
  
• Winchester '73
  
• Sunset Boulevard
  
• Gun Crazy
  
• All About Eve
  
• Singin' In The Rain
  
• Roman Holiday
  
• Seven Samurai
  
• On The Waterfront
  
• Rear Window
  
• Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
  
• The Searchers
  
• Some Like It Hot
  
• North By Northwest
  
• Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ
  
• Breathless
  
• Lawrence Of Arabia
  
• To Kill A Mockingbird
  
• Dr Strangelove
  
• Bonnie & Clyde
  
• In The Heat Of The Night
  
• The Graduate
  
• Once Upon A Time In The West
  
• Jaws
  
• Rocky
  
• Annie Hall
  
• This Is Spinal Tap

[The films are listed chronologically. Note that Ben-Hur is the William Wyler version and Some Like It Hot is the Billy Wilder comedy.]

"Malicious and harmfulto Mrs. Trump..."

Melania Trump, the wife of US presidential contender Donald Trump, has launched a lawsuit against the Daily Mail newspaper after it published allegations that she had worked as an escort. Her lawyer, Charles Harder, issued a statement saying that the claims were "so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs. Trump that her damages are estimated at $150m."

The case was filed today at Montgomery County Circuit Court in Maryland. Donald Trump is notoriously litigious, and Harder has successfully sued the gossip website Gawker into bankruptcy on behalf of another client, Hulk Hogan.

The Mail's article about Melania Trump, written by Natalie Clarke, was published on 20th August (on pages fourteen and fifteen), and also appeared on the newspaper's sensationalist website. After the lawsuit was filed, the Mail went to great lengths to remove all traces of the article online: it was not only deleted from the website, but also expunged from Google's search results, and replaced by the message "Content has been suppressed for editorial and/or legal reasons" in the PressReader digital archive.

The Mail's story was based on a cover story in the Slovenian magazine Suzy, published on 5th August, though the magazine is not named in the lawsuit. The Mail reported Suzy's allegation that models at the agency where Melania Trump worked "principally earned money as elite escorts," though it described the claim as a "seemingly fantastical story" and distanced itself from the magazine: "There is no evidence to back up these startling claims made in Suzy magazine."

The newspaper published a lengthy retraction today: "To the extent that anything in our article was interpreted as stating or suggesting that Mrs Trump worked as an 'escort' or in the 'sex business'... or that either of the modelling agencies referenced in the article were engaged in these businesses, it is hereby retracted, and we regret any such misinterpretation." (The retraction quotes the online headline "Naked photoshoots..." though the print article was headlined "Racy photos...")

Jules Cheret

Jules Cheret: Artist Of The Belle Epoque & Pioneer Of Poster Art is "the first major English- and German-language publication on Cheret." Editor Michael Buhrs is director of Museum Villa Stuck, in Munich, where a Cheret retrospective exhibition was held in 2011.

As Buhrs explains in his foreword, Cheret's poster designs were central to the Parisian Belle Epoque: "As a lithographer, printer, draughtsman, painter, interior designer and illustrator, he is a pre-eminent figure within the artistic and literary milieu of Paris at the turn of the century."

Cheret is widely regarded as the first true artist of illustrated posters. In his History Of The Poster, Josef Muller-Brockmann writes that Cheret "introduced the decisive turning point in poster design. His work established the beginning of the modern poster." Cheret's prolific output, often depicting colourful, liberated women known as 'Cherettes', was largely responsible for the 'affichomanie' ('poster-mania') coined by Octave Uzanne.

In his essay on Cheret and design, Martijn F Le Coultre quotes a contemporary description of Cheret as "king of the poster". Buhrs sees him as the "father of the modern poster", as does Philip B Meggs in his History Of Graphic Design. The Phaidon Archive Of Graphic Design describes him as "the father of the pictorial poster". In The Art Nouveau Poster, Alain Weill calls him "undeniably the father of the poster". According to Weill's comprehensive The Poster: A Worldwide Survey & History, he is "the father of poster art."

Many of Cheret's posters were included in Les Maitres De L'Affiche, reprinted in English as The Complete "Masters Of The Poster". There are chapters on Cheret in Weill's The Poster and The Art Nouveau Poster, and he is also discussed extensively in Stephen J Eskilson's Graphic Design: A New History.

Halloween

After a brief hiatus, Bangkok Open Air Cinema Club will return in October. The Club organises screenings of classic films (such as Star Wars IV) on the roof of The Hive in Bangkok.

Appropriately enough, they will be showing John Carpenter's classic Halloween (1978) on 19th November. Along with Black Christmas (1974), Halloween provided the prototype for the 'slasher' films that dominated American horror cinema in the 1980s.

The Art Nouveau Poster

The Art Nouveau Poster is "the most comprehensive survey to date" of Art Nouveau poster design. It was first published in French, as L'Affiche Art Nouveau. Author Alain Weill also wrote The Poster: A Worldwide Survey & History, the first and only complete history of posters.

The poster as an art form was a product of the Belle Epoque, benefiting from the development of chromolithography and an advantageous French law: "Although still in its earliest infancy, the poster was about to enjoy a golden age... In this it was helped by a specifically French development in the form of a law that came into force on 29 July 1881, allowing posters to be stuck to any object and to any site that was not specifically excluded."

For the next two decades, Paris was gripped by "affichomanie" ('poster-mania', coined by Octave Uzanne). The leading poster designer of the period was Jules Cheret: "Cheret was undeniably the father of the poster and was hailed as such by his contemporaries." (Many of Cheret's posters were included in Les Maitres De L'Affiche, reprinted in English as The Complete "Masters Of The Poster".)

The standard histories of graphic design (Meggs' History Of Graphic Design and Graphic Design: A New History) both discuss posters in their chapters on Art Nouveau graphics. Josef Muller-Brockmann's History Of The Poster includes a chapter on "The illustrative poster" which focuses on the Art Nouveau era. Ghislaine Wood wrote a chapter on Art Nouveau posters and bookbinding, "The Art of Paper", in Paul Greenhalgh's Art Nouveau 1890-1914.

A–Z of Design and Designers

Charlotte and Peter Fiell’s A–Z of Design and Designers, published this week in collaboration with London’s Design Museum, is an encyclopedia of 160 designers and design movements. The concept is similar to Design of the 20th Century, by the same authors.

Design of the 20th Century contains many more entries, though it has not been significantly revised since 1999. The new A–Z of Design and Designers includes coverage of contemporary design, and is so up-to-date that it mentions the death of Zaha Hadid. It also has a much more elegant layout, with large, well-chosen photographs.

The Fiells have written numerous other excellent books on design history, including The Story of Design, Plastic Dreams, Industrial Design A–Z, and Modern Furniture Classics. The Design Encyclopedia (by Mel Byars) is more comprehensive, though The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design (edited by Clive Edwards, in three volumes) is the definitive design reference work.

The Phaidon Archive Of Graphic Design

The Phaidon Archive Of Graphic Design is, according to its publisher, "an unparalleled resource of the world's very best specimens of graphic design." Not a book in the traditional sense (though it does include a bound index), the Archive is a box containing 500 loose cards, each of which represents a key example of graphic design from the past 500 years. Each card contains a full-page reproduction on one side, with a short essay and other illustrations on the reverse.

As the Archive weighs 13kg, it's supplied with removable handles. There are several excellent narrative histories of graphic design (Meggs' History Of Graphic Design, Graphic Design: A New History, and Graphic Design Before Graphic Designers), though the Archive is a unique and comprehensive collection of iconic graphic designs.

Masks

Masks: The Art Of Expression, edited by John Mack, was first published in 1994. The second edition, with a new preface, was published in 2013. It includes chapters on masks from Africa, Oceania, Latin America, Native America, Japan, ancient Egypt, the classical civilisations of Greece and Rome, and Europe.

There are geographical and cultural gaps in the book's coverage (notably Asian countries beyond Japan, such as Thailand's 'khon' masks), though it remains the best general introduction to the history of masks. It has a comprehensive bibliography, and plenty of full-page illustrations. Most of the featured masks are from the British Museum.

20th Century World Architecture

20th Century World Architecture, edited by Helen Thomas, is part of the Phaidon Atlas series. This large (folio format, 800 pages) book features 757 buildings constructed during between 1900 and 1999. Each building is profiled on a single page, though a handful of exceptions, such as the Sydney Opera House, are given double-page spreads.

This is surely the most comprehensive guide to the buildings of the last century, with "an unprecedented geographical scope, and an unparalleled level of data on twentieth-century architecture". There is substantial coverage of non-Western architecture, including sixty buildings from Africa, and almost 100 countries are represented in total. There are also more than 5,000 images.

Modern Architecture Since 1900 (by William JR Curtis) remains the best narrative history of the architecture of the period, and Architecture Of The 20th Century (by Peter Gossel and Gabriele Leuthauser) is an interesting visual history, though 20th Century World Architecture is unlikely to be surpassed as a global record of the significant buildings of the past 100 years. It's so heavy (8kg) that it comes with its own carrying case.

Still Brazy

Still Brazy, the latest album by rapper YG, has been censored by its distributor, Def Jam. The tracks FDT (Fuck Donald Trump, featuring Nipsey Hussle) and Blacks & Browns (featuring Sad Boy) both contained lyrics suggesting that Donald Trump could (or should) be shot, and those lines were removed before the album was released.

There were two deletions from FDT: YG's line "Surprised El Chapo ain't tried to snipe you" and Nipsey Hussle's "you gone prolly get smoked" were removed. One of Sad Boy's lines from Blacks & Browns was replaced by white noise, to highlight the censorship.

YG and Nipsey Hussle performed a clean version of FDT on the Comedy Central programme The Nightly Show on 22nd July, without any swear words, though ironically they did include the lines censored from the album. Also, when YG and Nipsey Hussle perform the song in concert, they play the uncensored version.

The uncensored version of FDT was released online in April, in advance of the album. According to YG, the Secret Service then contacted Def Jam's parent company, Universal, requesting a copy of the album's lyrics. YG says that the references to shooting Trump were removed by the record company at the request of the Secret Service.

The record company has not commented on the issue, and by definition the Secret Service is also unlikely to make any public comment. Thus, there is no way to verify YG's version of events. The album was certainly censored prior to its release, though YG's explanation about the Secret Service seems exaggerated.

The only album to be declared illegal in America was The 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989), which was convicted of obscenity in Florida. Ironically, when the band released a self-censored version of the album, As Clean As They Wanna Be, they were taken to court again, this time for copyright infringement over an unauthorised sample of Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman. The case set a legal precedent, with the Supreme Court ruling that parody constituted fair use.

In the UK, there have been a handful of police investigations into albums and singles. Thousands of copies of NWA's album Efil4zaggin were seized by customs and released several months later after a failed obscenity prosecution. The same fate befell Dismember's album Like an Everflowing Stream, 800 copies of which—en route from Germany—were also seized by customs. (In both cases, the albums were confiscated under the Customs Consolidation Act, a Victorian statute prohibiting the importation of obscene or indecent material.) Bata Motel, a track on the Crass album Penis Envy, was convicted under the Obscene Publications Act after a raid by Greater Manchester Police. So What?, the B-side to the Anti-Nowhere League's single Streets Of London, was also convicted of obscenity.

Ballpoint Art

Ballpoint Art, by Trent Morse, is billed as "the first compendium of art made with ballpoint pens." The book begins with a concise history of ballpoint art, followed by profiles of thirty contemporary artists who create abstract patterns and meticulous still life drawings with ballpoint pens.

Richard Klein curated the Ballpoint Pen Drawing Since 1950 exhibition in Connecticut in 2013, and his catalogue covers the same ground as Ballpoint Art. Neither of them provides a comprehensive study of the subject, though Morse's book has more material than Klein's slim catalogue.

Morse interviewed Klein for Ballpoint Art, and quotes him on the early history of the medium: "Fontana was the first artist to use ballpoint pen, in 1946". Lucio Fontana's Concetto Spaziale, from that year, is reproduced in both Klein and Morse's books.

In his catalogue, Klein described Alighiero Boetti as a pioneer of ballpoint art: "Boetti's drawings with the pen are the first to dramatically revel in the unmistakable blue of ballpoint ink." He gave Jan Fabre particular credit for his devotion to ballpoint: "Fabre is the first artist to totally embrace the pen as a medium, completing hundreds of ballpoint works between 1977 and 1992, with drawings varying in scale from the intimate to the architectural."

Interviewed in Ballpoint Art, Fabre explains his fascination with ballpoint drawing: "I like the chemical quality of the blue ink from a Bic ballpoint pen". He also compares Biro ink to lapis lazuli: "The blue of the ballpoint pen is connected to the history of art." Similarly, Boetti's blue colour field drawings are echoes of Yves Klein's International Klein Blue paintings.

Game Changers

Game Changers: The Evolution Of Advertising, edited by Peter Russell and Senta Slingerland, features 150 advertising campaigns from (approximately) the past sixty years. Publisher Taschen calls it "the first definitive history of how advertising got from there to here, and where it’s going next." It's not a definitive history, though it is an excellent survey of classic ad campaigns. It was published to coincide with an exhibition in 2013 organised by the Cannes Lions advertising festival.

Among the selected television commercials, billboard posters, and display ads are examples of effective slogans (such as Nike's "Just Do It" from 1988) and iconic images (including the conceptual Silk Cut campaign that began in 1984). There are also political broadcasts, from the nuclear apocalypse of Lyndon Johnson's Daisy Girl (1964) to Ronald Reagan's optimistic Prouder, Stronger, Better (1984; also known as "Morning in America").

Global campaigns, like Coca-Cola's Hilltop (1971) featuring the jingle "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", are included, alongside recent viral marketing such as Cadbury's Gorilla (2007). There are also commercials made by film directors such as Ridley Scott (Apple's 1984) and Jonathan Glazer (the acclaimed 1999 Surfer ad for Guinness).

100 Ideas That Changed Art

100 Ideas That Changed Art, by Michael Bird, is part of Laurence King's 100 Ideas That Changed... series. Other titles include Advertising, Photography, Film, Architecture, and Graphic Design. Every book in the series has the same format: 100 chapters, each with a single-page essay and a full-page illustration.

The book's 100 ideas include various forms of art (frescoes, mosaics, printmaking, photography, performance), artistic media (clay, stained glass, oil, watercolour), and traditional classifications (still life, portrait, landscape). The chapters on technical aspects - such as frames, canvas, welding, and plastics - are the most interesting, as (unlike the other subjects) they rarely feature in conventional art histories.

The chapters are organised by theme, rather than as a series of 'isms': "I tried... to get rid of every single 'ism', although one or two resisted paraphrase to the bitter end." As the author recognises, each chapter is a capsule summary of a vast subject: "each idea has its own distinct history in art. Many of them have been the subject of books in their own right", though unfortunately (unlike the other 100 Ideas... titles) there is no bibliography.

“I cannot accept this draft...”

Abhisit Vejajjiva, leader of the Democrat Party and former prime minister, has announced his opposition to the military junta’s proposed new constitution. At a press conference today, he said: “I cannot accept this draft.” He made clear that he was speaking in a personal capacity, as party politics has been outlawed since the 2014 coup.

Specifically, Abhisit criticised article 102 of the charter, which calls for a fully appointed Senate. (Thailand’s 1997 constitution introduced an elected Senate for the first time in the country’s history, though under the militar’s 2007 constitution the Senate became 50% appointed.) Earlier this year, Abhisit said: “The draft charter is retrogressive compared to the 2007 charter”.

A referendum on the issue will be held on 7th August. As in the 2007 constitution referendum, a ‘yes’ vote is being equated with a faster return to democracy, though coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha has already delayed his election roadmap multiple times. At today’s press conference, Abhisit rejected the idea that a ‘no’ vote would exacerbate Thailand’s political crisis, saying: “if the draft is rejected, the country will have a better opportunity.”

The proposed constitution has also been rejected by Pheu Thai, which issued a statement in April calling for a 'no' vote: “Pheu Thai Party requests that the people come out and vote to “reject” the draft charter that does not recognize the people’s power and lacks democratic principles.” (That press release was written before the Referendum Act came into effect, since when campaigns against the charter have been effectively banned.)

The Serenity Of Madness

The Serenity Of Madness is the first major museum retrospective for Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and the inaugural exhibition of Chiang Mai's new MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum. The exhibition, curated by Gridthiya Gaweewong, opened on 3rd July and runs until 10th September. A catalogue, Apichatpong Weerasethakul Sourcebook, will be published in September.

The exhibition begins with Ghost Teen, an enormous photograph (also used on the exhibition poster) filling an entire two-storey wall. In the first gallery are production materials from Apichatpong's archive, including scripts and sketches for Tropical Malady and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Twenty-one of Apichatpong's short films and videos are shown in the other galleries, including Ashes (filmed on a LomoKino camera), Vampire (a faux-documentary horror film), 0116643225059 (a student film made in Chicago, previously screened at Tomyam Pladib), and Windows (Apichatpong's first work shot on video, previously shown at Indy Spirit Project). There are also three short videos from his Primitive installation: An Evening Shoot, Nabua, and the spellbinding Phantoms Of Nabua.