Leanne Shapton

Aukční katalog toho o člověku dokáže říct hodně - o jeho vášních a marnivosti, poklescích i cítění. O tom lepším i horším, čím prochází. Leanne Shaptonová s úžasnou vynalézavostí sestavila katalog věcí, které zbyly po vztahu Lenore Doolanové a Harold a Morrise. Mezi fotografiemi předmětů, které jsou na dražbách běžně k vidění (šperky, umělecká díla nebo vzácný nábytek), ale i zdánlivě bezcenných věcí (pyžamo, vzkazy, ohmatané knihy) se vynořuje příběh lásky jednoho fotografa a jedné novinářky.

"Swimming Studies" is a wonderful, unique book from the writer and artist Leanne Shapton, author of "Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry", along with her artwork. As a teenager, Leanne Shapton trained for the Olympic swimming trials; now an artist, she is still drawn inexorably to swimming, in pools and on beaches across the world. What do you with an all-absorbing activity once it's past its relevance, and yet you can't quite give it up? Is it possible to find a new purpose for its rigours and focus? "Swimming Studies" is an original, meditative work that explores what it is like to move from a world of competition and discipline to one of recreation and introspection. Giving a fascinating glimpse into the private realms of swimming, and drawing, Shapton tells an intimate story of suburban adolescence, family ties, and the solitary underwater moments that now ground her artistic habits. "Whenever I come across something of Leanne Shapton's, I feel like I have found a hidden treasure". (Amy Sedaris).

Written by the author of Important Artifacts and Personal Property, this book creates an authorly and artistic response to travel, work and being a passenger. It is part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin.

"Was She Pretty?" is a beautiful exploration of modern love, relationships and jealousy from Leanne Shapton, the author of "Swimming Studies" and "Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry". "A dreamy exploration of relationships and jealousy ...pithy and deadpan ...it's no self-help book". ("Salon"). In this singular exploration of modern love and all its demons, we learn how Martin still takes calls from his ex into another room; Lucy's ex only dated actresses; Steve's got him into S and Alec's ex-girlfriend had a thing for father figures. Through Leanne Shapton's beautifully illustrated snapshots of paranoia, jealousy and anxiety, "Was She Pretty?" explores the dangers of knowing about a lover's former lover, the discomfiting truths the exes can reveal about ourselves, and the secret hatred and admiration we can feel for those almost-strangers. Leanne Shapton is an artist, illustrator, and writer who was born in Toronto and lives in New York. She is the author of "Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry". Her latest book, "Swimming Studies", is published July 2012.

'Shapton has created a mystical territory - a performance, an exhibition, a guestbook - in which I felt the ghost within myself; the thing that will outlive me. A fearless and exquisite book' Miranda July Guestbook explores the glimmering, unsettling things that haunt us in the midst of life, combining stories, vignettes and an evocative curiosity cabinet of artifacts and images - found photographs, original paintings, Instagram-style portraits - to transform the traditional ghost story into something else entirely. 'Leanne Shapton has a way of making books entirely new, surreal, and uncanny ... Guestbook contains ghost stories for a world of images and captions, in which the ghosts are all of us, and our strange time' Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?