This is a lavishly illustrated monograph, published as a sort of epilogue to a previous exhibition. This is a record of the exhibition that is enhanced by rarely seen archival materials and color reproductions of some of the many artworks that defined the “golden era” of Lebanese modernism.

The book provides an opening of the field beyond the parameters of the so-called Western canon with a multigenerational selection of artists. The sheer volume magnifies how mainstream artworld institutions are complicit in the erasure, gatekeeping, and misappropriation that have been central to the settler colonial project in North America.

Kimowan Metchewais: A Kind of Prayer is edited and designed to honor the poetics that distinguished the artist’s multi-disciplinary practice. Color reproductions in the monograph do not appear in chronological order but instead are placed in relation to one another, highlighting how Metchewais tended to carry ideas over space and time, regularly bridging different experiences and periods of his life.

To say that Jean Conner’s first museum exhibition is long overdue is an understatement. Belonging to a generation of Bay Area artists that solidified the idea of artist as alchemist, she has been active since the late 1950s, shortly after moving to San Francisco from the Midwest with her husband, conceptual artist Bruce Conner.

This takes the idea of an artwork that has gone from creation, to destruction, to reanimation as the premise for a book that offers a much-needed glimpse into the ecology of the Bay Area art scene. It presents a template for how documentation and analysis can be used to honor the region’s idiosyncratic art making practices.

A book of delicate autobiographical drawings tells the story of two lovers’ forced separation. The book’s 5.5 inch-square format complements the intimate nature of its captioned images, as holding the book in one hand and flipping its pages with the other feels like unfolding a note that has been passed in secret.

These photographs summon the ghosts of the Strait of Hormuz, alluding to the psychic energy that lies beneath the sediments of the arid islands. These are perceptive portraits of men and women who appear undeterred by the harshness of the environment and its various elements, outwardly confident in a centuries-old ability to weather such forces.

Photographs produced using this mobile darkroom for children capture mundane carefree scenes. The overall feeling of this poignant book is that children are not only inquisitive but resilient, even experimental, and that no matter the context, photography will always be magical.