Dirt cupcake mix, as American as apple pie. Nipple lightener from Japan. Tick juice, indispensable in Venezuela for black magic love rituals. Sunglasses from Zimbabwe with shades cut from plastic juice bottles and no lenses. Korean disposable straw sandals made especially for mourners and corpses. Is this stuff cool or what? But wait--there's more. Flip through this book in search of international weirdness, and it's a pretty sure bet you'll wind up absorbing some sobering information about sex, death, destruction, poverty, and the arrogant ways of multinationals. Under the guise of an ultrahip consumer's guide to the world's nifty stuff--divided into sections labeled "Food," "Fashion," "Animals," "Body," "Soul" and "Leisure"--1000 Extra/Ordinary Objects is a subversive crusader for human rights and ecological awareness...
1000 Extra/Ordinary Objects [ read more ]

As a child, Valentina Moncada, daughter of an art-loving fashion photographer, spent much of her play time observing photo shoots with some of the world's most famous models. She played with Cy Twombly, Oliviero Toscani, and Verushka, frequent guests at her father's studio. Marked by emotions experienced at age 15 in front of Pop and Minimalist masterpieces hung at the National Gallery in Washington, Moncada understood it was the art world to which she belonged, which led her to found the contemporary art gallery which bears her name...
Visions: Galleria Valentina Moncada: The First Decade [ read more ]