4/10/2024 0 Comments Noble collection time turnerI adore Desert Island-its lightness and imagination, its glorious delight in drawings and words. (A recent find: “Suitable for Framing: The Cartoons of Andy Boyd, Volume 1.”) Pick up “Smoke Signal,” the free full-color broadside published by the shop’s owner, Gabe Fowler, showcasing one artist per issue. Linger in front of the latest window installation. There are so many analog treasures stuffed into this place there is so much loving curation. The Williamsburg storefront, once Sparacino’s Bakery, has purveyed comics, graphic novels, artists’ books, prints, and zines on consignment since 2008. Hua HsuĪt the intersection of the L and the G train lines (I’ve lived on the G for the past fourteen years and lived on the L before that) is Desert Island, a bookshop that is so beautifully designed that it doubles as a work of art. Their mission remains the same as when they started in the mid-seventies: to kindle faith in creative expression, the weirder the better. Whether you come across the sole copy of some kid’s photocopied poems or the much-hyped début monograph of an up-and-coming painter, a zine about Jamaican dancehall culture or one about Hong Kong skaters, a book of appropriated anime art or one about communing with the mountains, there’s truly something for everyone, and at price points that range from “just curious” to collector-aficionado. A survivor from a different era of New York, the shop (there are two locations, but make the effort to go to the one in Chelsea) specializes in self-published zines, artists’ books, quirky periodicals, anything involving text on paper. It took me a couple of years to realize there was a second floor at their main location in Chelsea. Thrilling, overwhelming, chaotic: even if I spend an hour in Printed Matter, I often feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. It’s tempting to scoff at the idea of books as cool-factor design objects, but I always leave wanting to own everything in the joint. The books fight for space with branded Marc Jacobs tchotchkes: pens, tote bags, sparkly key fobs. (Is that a weathered copy of “ The Butch Manual,” from 1982? It is.) Customers are greeted by a come-hither portrait of Grace Jones, glaring from the cover of a volume of Warhol Polaroids. Chunky counterculture art books (Keith Haring, Nan Goldin) abound, alongside paperback collections by fetishized authors (Joan Didion, Truman Capote) hip sixties classics (“ Lunch Poems,” “ Valley of the Dolls”) and themed shelves on fashion, food and drink, and the gay underground. Its carefully curated selection evokes the retro chic of Andy Warhol and Studio 54. Opened in 2010, the style-conscious shop is the last vestige of Marc Jacobs’s once-sprawling Bleecker Street retail empire. Is it a bookstore or a vibe? Bookmarc, situated in a corner storefront opposite Magnolia Bakery, is both.
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