Arcana: Books On The Arts

Restocked! “Slip Me the Master Key” is a book of photographs by Thomas Prior. Work from the past two decades, American weirdness, foreboding timeliness… all that good stuff. Book of the day. (Loose Joints, 2025)

Life in the Chelsea when life in the Chelsea was life in the Chelsea. Albert Scopin’s new book “Chelsea Hotel” features unearthed photos taken between 1969 and 1971 at the legendary hotel when it was a haven for Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Shirley Clarke, the Cockettes, Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, and on and on. Book of the day. (Kerber Verlag, 2026)

Look, it’s Sunday and it’s been a long week for everyone everywhere. If we just want to phone it in with the book of the day and feature another volume that’s just a stack of curated images of cats, that’s exactly what we will do. Breathe in the cats. Soak them up. Take them in. They are here to help. Don’t like it? Call 1-800-CAT-PISS and leave your complaints at the meow. (Assouline, 2026)

“The Mount Washington Post” is a zine that has been steadfastly released for more than a year by the artist and Arcana friend Lisa Anne Auerbach. Handwritten and uber-relevant sloganeering in beautiful Risograph hues. Sorta psychedelic and all the way radical! Numerous issues in stock now!

The old kids’ books featured in “L is for Look: Children’s Photobooks” are all great and it’s our book of the day, but really we just wanted to have an excuse to post that clock guy in the first slide: Look at that guy. Just being a cool clock guy. (Spector Books, 2026)

“Anybody can play. The note is only 20%. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.” — Miles Davis. “Three Days in Malibu” is a new book that lets you basically hang out at Miles’s place in said town in 1989. Book of the day! (Scheidegger & Spiess, 2026)

Our esteemed and radiant friend Shaniqwa Jarvis will be signing her new book "GUTS" here at Arcana on Saturday, May 5th, from 4 until 6PM. We are deeply pleased to report this news. Please join us if you are able, but if you not able and if you are interested in obtaining a signed copy of "GUTS," please DM us and we will add you, in the order in which your message is received, to the waiting list for any copies remaining post-event. PS: Liquid refreshments, including Las Jaras wine, which is our favorite wine, will be served to all comers who may legally consume such things.

From the publisher: “The reputation as an auteur that Paul Virilio (1932–2018) enjoys today derives from the work he did for his “Bunker Archeology”. When, in the second half of the 1950s, he began photographing abandoned Second World War bunkers along France’s Atlantic coast, he was working with glass as an artistic medium. In 1966, he presented his photographs to the public for the first time in the magazine “architecture principe”, which he co-edited. At the time, he was particularly interested in the architectural aspects of these wartime installations. He saw the bunkers as “harbingers of a new architecture”, which he sought to capture in the term “cryptic architecture”. The first exhibition of Virilio’s “Bunker Archeology” was staged at the Centre Pompidou in 1975, while the museum was still in the process of being established. His seminal book was published in conjunction with this. It laid out all the motifs of his philosophical thinking: military space and communications warfare, camouflage and acceleration, a scrupulous reading of the present coupled with a desire for philosophical speculation. Although it is almost fifty years since the work was first published, “Bunker Archeology” is still full of connections to the present. The English edition features a new translation by Simon Cowper.” Book of the day! (Spector Books, 2026)

“When you’re sitting back in your rose-pink Cadillac, making bets on Kentucky Derby days I’ll be in my basement room with a... “ Well, never mind that. Tomorrow is Derby Day! In its honor we are proud to showcase friend-of-Arcana Marc Karzen’s new book of beautiful old photos, specifically from the bacchanalia known as Derby Week. Dating from 1984, these colorful and wonderfully composed photographs capture the simmering mint-julep fueled chaos that is Churchill Downs this time of year. Marc also has a very, very fun-filled and jam-packed book of the hilarious and uncanny bumpers he co-created for the iconic early years of Late Night with David Letterman. Both of these wonderful books (nb: each copy of Kentucky Derby 1984 comes with a delightful printed photograph too) are available via the link in our bio. Get ready for the Run for the Roses, and let’s all hope our favorite horsey doesn’t spit the bit.

Book of the day - KEMBRA PFAHLER !From the publisher: “A life in pictures of a New York City performance artist, musician, and icon. Iconic rockstar and performance artist Kembra Pfahler’s life in pictures. Original New York City icon Pfahler has terrorized and tantalized audiences since her arrival in the Lower East Side in the early 1980s. Originally associated with the Cinema of Transgression, Pfahler supported her films with work at an independent porn studio. In the 1990s, she launched The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, a rock band associated with Kiss, Alice Cooper, and White Zombie. Nude and covered in paint, with blackened teeth and bouffant hair, Pfahler developed a reputation for wild performance that reached far beyond the Lower East Side. Elements of Kabuki theater, surfing, bugs, and giant sharks from her legendary shows were later repurposed for performance art. Beginning in the early 2000s, Pfahler titillated gallery-goers with openings featuring dozens of painted women, butt-prints, and performances involving endurance and strength. With galleries including Real Fine Art, Deitch Projects, and The Hole, Pfahler created a visual lexicon incorporating occult imagery, bondage, and challenging forms of femininity. Through teaching, activism, and performance art, Pfahler serves as a mentor to students, and in recent years, a muse to designers including Rick Owens, Casey Cadwallader, and Alessandro Michele. Collecting four decades of ephemera, performance documentation, road pictures, and more, the book celebrates Pfahler as a countercultural star.” (Rizzoli, 2026)

We’ve already told you about the fun respite from the humdrum world we will have with our friend Brad tomorrow (see below for a previous-post retread) but did we mention there will be lovely prints of select works of his here, for sale, too? See you then! Please join us tomorrow, Saturday, April 25th, between 4:00 and 6:00 PM as we host a book signing and discussion with Los Angeles-based artist and photographer Brad Donenfeld in conjunction with the publication of “Looking. Seeing.” Beautifully produced and printed, it is a comprehensive survey of fifty years of his creative visual work beginning with his iconic sixties headshop poster “Peace Man” - produced as a teenager - through his own recent personal color photography. He will be joined for what promises to be a thought-provoking discussion of his artistic evolution with gallerist and art consultant Eli Consilvio. If you cannot attend and would like to purchase a signed and numbered limited edition copy of “Looking. Seeing.”, please place your order at the link in our bio.