Before the Circus Left Town:
Rachel Mason’s Circus of Books

By Daniel Gerwin

APRIL 2020 | Film

I arrived at Circus of Books without the slightest clue I was walking into LA queer history. The store has since closed, but a new documentary, Circus of Books, explores its 33-year life and the story of its unlikely proprietors, Karen and Barry Mason, a straight and straight-laced Jewish couple. The movie’s director is their daughter Rachel, a multi-disciplinary artist who made a previous film in 2013, The Lives of Hamilton Fish.

Stephen Antonakos: Late Light Gold Works 2010–2013

By Mary Ann Caws

DEC 19-JAN 20 | ArtSeen

This past Friday the 13th of December, in the dismal rain, was a deliciously gilded day for anyone who went to Chelsea to contemplate the undismal sheen of these “late light gold works.” Created late in the life of Stephen Antonakos, and luminous, all these radiant outpourings and inpourings of a sun inside a mind shine forth.

Enghelab Street, A Revolution through Books: Iran 1979 – 1983

By Carol Nisar

DEC 19-JAN 20 | Art Books

Amassed by the artist Hannah Darabi, this oversized photobook casts a broadly curated lens on the sociopolitical turmoil induced by Iran’s Islamic revolution through a look at the Tehran’s underground publishing scene. Including personal recollections, first-hand accounts from publishers and photographers, and invaluable photographic documentation of the books and the city, Darabi and researcher Chowra Makaremi reconstruct this important moment in Iran’s history.

Art Books Dispatches from the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair

SEPT 2019 | Art Books

My conversation with Devers underscored the importance of collecting as a means of rectifying history. “It seems like a nostalgic pursuit, but the more energy in the market around certain books, the more likely it gets onto syllabus and back into print.”