Pablo Neruda remarked that "a bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air as high as birds, as high as prices."
Expect a lot of that at next weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which brings together publishers from around the world. Many debut or announce big, beautiful books on L.A. artists, including Jorge Pardo, Jason Rhoades, Tim Hawkinson, Barbara Bloom, Frances Stark, Doug Aitken and Pat O'Neill.
One of the most anticipated is "Gary Panter" (PictureBox), a 688-page tome devoted to L.A.'s favorite punk illustrator. It covers his work on "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and the comic strip "Jimbo," but there are also hundreds of surreal drawings and prints.
Another sure bet is Kristine McKenna's "The Ferus Gallery: A Place to Begin" (Steidl), which takes us deep inside the L.A. art scene of the early 1960s with 300 rare photos and a DVD to boot.
Many of these books are being initiated and published by Europeans. That suggests an expanding global audience. "The Los Angeles art scene has nurtured some of the greatest artists in the world," says publisher Gerhard Steidl.
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