Friday, March 18, 2011

Egypt, against universalism


I want to revisit this Riz Khan segment from Al Jazeera English, with Tariq Ramadan and Slavoj Žižek

I think it's ineptly, chauvinistically, and coercively titled "Egypt's Revolution: Can the Popular Uprising Lead to Real Political Change?"  From the get-go, it dooms other possibilities, political or otherwise.  This is reinforced by Ramadan and Žižek despite their words of good conscience that attempt to critique the West's prejudices and hypocrisy toward the Muslim world. 

What's most insulting is Žižek's shoddy shibboleth: "we are all universalists" (4:06).  By being proud for the Egyptians because "they understand democracy by doing what they are doing better than we do in the West" (5:16), he might as well as say that they're more West than the West...so who cares about their specific culture(s)?, this hindrance to solidarity's universal that is general exchange.  Žižek's thinking itself is an ideological symptom.  It's a somewhat valid observation that Islamic fundamentalism filled the void of the Left (14:33), but there was also a void in the Left itself, which could be bad but could be good, a cipher.  Žižek's is a nostalgia for a failed utopia, and the chore of dusting off the memorabilia on the shelves.  Even in the multilinear theory of history, why doom an insurrection to the politico-philosophic circuit of a ravenous incorporating Geist?  We can't even "let the dead bury their dead" (Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte) because Žižek proposes to let the dead resurrect their dead.  And we know from movies, when zombies can't cannibalize the living, they cannibalize themselves. 


Elucidating for me anyways, some passages in Baudrillard's texts collected in The Agony of Power:

"The high point of the struggle against domination was the historic movement of liberation, be it political, sexual, or otherwise - a continuous movement, with guiding ideas and visible actors.

But liberation also occurred with exchanges and markets, which brings us to this terrifying paradox: all of the liberation fights against domination only paved the way for hegemony, the reign of general exchange - against which there is no possible revolution, since everything is already liberated.

Total revolt responds to total order, not just dialectical conflict.  At this point, it is double or nothing: the system shatters and drags the universal away in its disintegration.  It is vain to want to restore universal values from the debris of globalization.  The dream of rediscovered universality (but did it ever exist?) that could put a stop to global hegemony, the dream of a reinvention of politics and democracy and, as for us, the dream of a Europe bearing an alternative model of civilization opposed to neoliberal hegemony - this dream is without hope.  Once the mirror of universality is broken (which is like the mirror stage of our modernity), only fragments remain, scattered fragments.  Globalization automatically entails, in the same movement, fragmentation and deepening discrimination - and our fate is for a universe that no longer has anything universal about it - fragmentary and fractal - but that no doubt leaves the field free for all singularities: the worst and the best, the most violent and the most poetic."

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

no posts for a week...

Bigfoot, 2011.  Paint on wall.
(Photo by J.S.)
I need to take care of a few things, need to disappear for a week, and there won't be any new posts for that period of time.

Please check back in several days.  Thanks for visiting ).

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Lynd Ward, wordless novels in woodcuts

Ya gotta jump on this one, all six of Lynd Ward's wordless novels in woodcuts including his writings as a two volume boxed set (Library of America, 2011), edited by Art Spiegelman known notably for RAW magazine, graphic novel masterpiece Maus: A Survivor's Tale, and his work as editor at The New Yorker.

A compendium like this hasn't been seen since Storyteller Without Words (Abrams, 1974).

Ward's early graphic novels are still some of the best, each frame elegantly eye-catching yet trenchant.  Today's proliferating graphic novels, often inconsistently or even shoddily produced despite being slicker, could use some lessons from Ward. 

Of course, it's better to have the original editions, although they're getting harder to get.  But fortunately, all six novels are independently available now in affordable formats. 

God's Man (Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1930), reprinted (Dover, 2004)
Madman's Drum (Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1930), reprinted (Dover, 2005)
Wild Pilgrimage (Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1932), reprinted (Dover, 2008)
Prelude to a Million Years (Equinox, 1933), reprinted (Dover, 2010)
Song Without Words (Random House, 1936), reprinted (Dover, 2010)
Vertigo (Random House, 1937), reprinted (Dover, 2009)

Unfortunately, Ward's incomplete novel, printed in a limited edition as Lynd Ward's Last Unfinished Wordless Novel (Harsimus Press, 2001) is not readily available.

Ward also illustrated many books, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1934), reprinted (Dover, 2009).


Relatedly, Frans Masereel's works are also available in affordable formats.  Passionate Journey is my favorite.  And again, previous editions are better, but you know the story...

Not many monographs on Masereel in English.  Roger Avermaete's Frans Masereel (Rizzoli, 1977) is a nice American edition.  Stefan Zweig's Der Zwang (Enforcement) was illustrated by Masereel, and the writer also contributed to a monograph on the artist. 


A pretty good introductory book on the subject.


You're no good anymore, 2002.  Linocut.
La Loteria IV, 1996.  Linocut.
Also, while we're on the subject of relief printmaking, people should be more familiar with a contemporary master, Artemio Rodriguez.  He used to live in Los Angeles, had a print studio La Mano Press, recently relocated to Mexico to dedicate himself to El Huerto, Centro de Ecologia y Artes (The Orchard, Center for Ecology and Arts).  Many years ago, I met him when he was just starting out in the U.S. at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, and he's a nice guy ).

Video of El Huerto, Centro de Ecologia y Artes, as well as link to news on Rodriguez.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Josef Koudelka, introduction book

You might want to get this forthcoming nice little book introduction to Josef Koudelka's photography (Torst, 2011), a reprinting of a previous edition 2002.

I first learned of Koudelka about 10 years ago, through my interest in his photographs of gypsies, for which perhaps he's most well-known.  The book collection (Aperture, 1975), reprinted 1992, is now somewhat hard to get, especially in fine condition. 

His photographs of the Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, which ended Prague Spring, are also highly regarded.  The book form (Aperture, 2008) is now out of print, as are other editions, and the original Czech edition Invaze 68 (Torst, 2008).  Prague, 1968 (Centre National de la Photographie/Photo Notes, 1990), reprinted 1999 is available. 

Another outstanding collection, Exiles (Aperture, 1988) is also out of print, last reprinted by Aperture 1997.

I would get his latest major collection, Chaos (Phaidon, 1999), reprinted 2005 and 2008.

Youtube video of some of Koudelka's works.

Many of his photographs on view at Magnum's website.

Partial list of other books:
in print:
Koudelka.Piedmont (Thames & Hudson, 2009), reprinted (Contrasto 2010)
Koudelka (Thames & Hudson, 2006)
Josef Koudelka (Thames & Hudson/Photofile, 2007)
out of print:
Animal (Trois Cailloux, 1990)
Black Triangle (Sprava Prazskeho, 1994)
Periplanissis (Thessaloniki Filmfestival, 1995)
Joseph Koudelka no15 (Actes Sud, 1997)
Reconnaissance Wales (Ffotogallery, 1998)
Limestone (Editions de la Martiniere, 2001)
En Chantier: Une Universite et une Quartier: Paris 13e Massena (Textuel, 2002)
Theatre du Temps (Actes Sud, 2003)
Camargue (Actes Sud, 2006)
I Grandi Fotografi (Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri, 1983)
Josef Koudelka (Centre National de la Photographie, 1978, 1984)
in Portrait of a Film: White Nights (Abrams, 1985)
Josef Koudelka (Editions de la Difference, 1989)
L'Epreuve Totalitaire (Delphire, 2004)
Koudelka (Delphire, 2006)
Koudelka (Edition Graus Gmbh, 2006)
Koudelka (Aperture, 2007)
Josef Koudelka: Retrospektif/Retrospective (Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation, Pera Museum, 2008)
A few other books listed at Magnum's website, but I didn't locate their availability online.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Marshall "Eddie" Conway autobiography etc

I'm looking forward to reading this book, Marshall "Eddie" Conway's Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther (AK Press, 2011).  


Relatedly, there's Mumia Abu-Jamal's We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (South End Press, 2004), reprinted 2008.


My favorite autobiography by a (former) Black Panther is James Carr's BAD: The Autobiography of James Carr (Herman Graf Associates, 1975), reprinted by AK Press 2002.  Not to be confused with the singer by the same name, although he's good too.  This book is rambunctious and highly poignant, not only reflecting and exposing the conflicted historical logic of the Black Panther Party and its members, but expressing the basic fact and crux of being, the inexorable sine qua non of rage, resistance, and uncertain renewal.


I also recommend Sanyika Shakur/Monster Kody Scott's classic Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993), reprinted by Grove Press 2004.

Recently, his first novel T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. (Grove Press, 2009) was published.


And Stanley Tookie Williams' Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir (Touchstone, 2007), as well as his Redemption: From Original Gangster to Nobel Prize Nominee (Milo Books, 2004) and Life in Prison (Chronicle Books, 2001).

some interesting exhibitions: Gottfried Helnwein, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz, etc

The Disasters of War 10, 2007.  Oil and acrylic on canvas.
Sacramento: There's a major exhibition at Crocker Art Museum of Gottfried Helnwein's works, Gottfried Helnwein: Inferno of the Innocents, January 29, 2011-April 24, 2011. 

Beautiful Victim I, 1974.  Watercolor on cardboard.
Untitled, 1996.  Oil and acrylic on canvas.
Untitled, 1998.  Oil and acrylic on canvas.
Oath, 2000.  Oil and acrylic on canvas.
For me, I'm not sure if Helnwein's images are really all that challenging, whether they rely more on ready-made referentiality as controversially evocative legerdemain or if that's exactly the profundity itself.  In any case, his works are impressive and well-done.  Above link to more works and info at his website.


The Yawner, 1771-83.  Tin cast.
Paris: Neue Galerie, NYC recently had the first exhibition dedicated to Franz Xaver Messerschmidt which in collaboration travels to the Louvre, January 28, 2011-April 25, 2011.  A catalogue is also available. 

Messerschmidt would be considered a schizophrenic these days, which led him to work on his famous character heads often modeled from himself. 

Above link to helpful website on Messerschmidt.


From Travelers, 2001-2010.  C-print.
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/humin/events
Ann Arbor: Check out the exhibition at Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan featuring some of Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz's supermundane snow globes and photography, White Nights, January 24, 2011-March 16, 2011.  Another exhibition at Bellevue Arts Museum, Travelers: Objects of Dream and Revelation, August 26, 2011-December 31, 2011.

The Orchard at Night, from Islands, 2005.  C-print.
More images and info at their website.

A recent book, Travelers (Aperture, 2008).  It's ok, but could've been better produced imho. 
You can get your own snow globe for $750 USD, three to choose from, each with a limited edition of 250.  Some may have sold out. 


Kinder!, 2006.  C-print.
NYC: There's still some time to go, but this forthcoming exhibition at Museum of Arts and Design is going to be awesome, Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities, June 7, 2011-September 18, 2011.  C'mon, it's really cool miniature stuff!!!
Brancusi 1928, 2003.  Digital print.
Bureau de Sigmund Freud, 2002.  Mixed media.
Included in the exhibition are work(s) by Martin & Munoz as well as by other faves Joe Fig and the amazing Charles Matton and Alan Wolfson.

Dwellings, 1981.  Mixed media. 
Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
Also, it's a chance to rediscover the works of Charles Simonds, some of the greatest site-specific pieces, mindfully sequestered. 

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Jan Brueghel the Elder paintings

The Sermon on the Mount, 1598.  Oil on copper.
When I do go to the damn Getty Center, I first head to my favorite painting there which for some reason is Jan Brueghel the Elder's The Sermon on the Mount (1598).  Credit goes to my friend Elliot, who told me about it as he sometimes does.  It shows meticulously marvelous technique.  Ya gotta see this small painting up close 'n' personal, perhaps with a magnifying glass, all those finely delineated little people, trees, etc.  It's very much like an enameled "jewel-like object."

The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark, 1613.  Oil on panel.
Right beside it is his The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark.  Nice painting...
...and you can take it with you as a poster from the museum store.  I did. 

Not many books in English out there on "Velvet Brueghel." 
You might want to get this recent book, Leopoldine Prosperetti's Landscape and Philosophy in the Art of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) (Ashgate, 2009).

You may be able to find Gertraude Winkelmann-Rhein's Blumen-Brueghel (Verlag M. Dumot Schauberg, 1968) in its English version, The Paintings and Drawings of Jan "Flower" Bruegel (Abrams, 1969), which is ok.

I would like to have Klaus Ertz's Jan Brueghel D.A.: Die Gemalde (Dumont, 1979) or his/Christa Nitze-Ertz's four volume Jan Brueghel der Altere: Die Gemalde (Luca Verlag Lingen, 2008).

Other interesting titles found online:
Jan Brueghel the Elder:
Fritz Baumgart/Blumen Brueghel (Dumont, 1978)
Jan Brueghel the Elder (Brod Gallery, 1979)
Klaus Ertz/Pieter Brueghel der Jungere-Jan Brueghel der Altere: Flamische Malerei um 1600: Tradition und Fortschritt (Luca Verlag, 1997)
Klaus Ertz/Pieter Brueghel Le Jeune-Jan Brueghel l'Ancien: Une Famille des Peintres Flamandes vers 1600 (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 1998)
Arianne Faber Kolb/Jan Brueghel the Elder: The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark (Getty Trust Publications, 2005)
Anne Woollett et al./Rubens and Brueghel: A Working Friendship (Getty Trust Publications, 2006)
Emile Michel, Victoria Charles/The Brueghels (Parkstone Press, 2007)
Jan Brueghel the Elder (Betascript Publishing, 2010)
Frederic P. Miller et al./Jan Brueghel the Elder (Alphascript Publishing, 2010)
related:
Max J. Friedlander/Early Netherlandish Painting: From Van Eyck to Bruegel (Phaidon , 1956), reprinted in two volumes 1969
John Oliver Hand/The Age of Bruegel: Netherlandish Drawings in the Sixteenth Century (National Gallery of Art, 1986)
Walter S. Gibson/Mirror of the Earth: The World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting (Princeton University Press, 1989)
David Koetser/Fine Old Master Paintings principally of the Dutch and Flemish Schools (David Koetser, 1990)
Meredith Hale et al./Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings (Johnny van Haeften, 2002)
Friedrich August von Metzsch/Bild und Botschaft: Biblische Geschichten auf Bildern der Alten Pinakothek Munchen (Schnell und Steiner, 2002)
Konrad Renger, Claudia Denk/Flamische Malerei des Barock (Dumont Buchverlag Gmbh, 2002)
Gordon Campbell/Renaissance Art and Architecture (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Arthur K. Wheelock/Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (National Gallery, 2005)
Agnes Tieze/Flamische Gemalde im Stadel Museum 1550-1800 (Imhof Verlag, 2009)
Annemarie Stefes/Niederlandische Zeichnungen 1450-1800 (Bohlau-verlag Gmbh, 2011)

And of course, his dad Pieter was not bad ;) hehe.  Pieter Brueghel the Elder is up there with my all-time favorites. 


The Tower of Babel, 1602.  Oil on panel.
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, Antwerpen
With help from other sources, somewhat obsessively, I went ahead and made a partial alphabetical list of museums with work(s) by Jan Brueghel the Elder:

Asia:
The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo


Europe:
Albertina, Wien
Alte Galerie Schloss Eggenberg, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz-Andritz
Alte Pinokothek, Munchen
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology University of Oxford, Oxford
Brighton & Hove Museums, England
Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze
Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Firenze
Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin
Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden
Glasgow Museums, Glasgow
Groeningemuseum, Brugge
*Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, Antwerpen
*Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich
*Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel
Le Musee d'Art ancien, Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles
LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn, Bonn
?Musee des Augustins, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse, Toulouse
Musee des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux
Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon
*Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, Kassel
Muzeul National de Arta al Romaniei, Bucuresti
Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warszawa
Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Roma
Pinacoteca, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede
Statens Museum for Kunst, Kobenhavn
The Courtauld Gallery, London
The Ftizwilliam Museum, Cambridge
The National Gallery, London
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moskva
*The Royal Collection, UK
The State Hermitage Museum, Sankt-Peterburg
Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest
Victoria and Albert Museum, London


North America:
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn
?Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis
The Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore


South America:
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires


*Later, I'll also make a similar museum list for Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and for other favorite Flemish masters.*

Zhang Zeduan - Along the River During Qingming Festival

Qingming Shang He Tu detail, 12th century.  Handscroll, painting on silk.
detail
closeup detail
closeup detail
I hope to visit China at some point, and when in Beijing, at The Palace Museum, a must see is Zhang Zeduan's original 12th century scroll painting Qingming Shang He Tu, or Along the River During Qingming Festival.  In the exceptional tradition of such paintings, notably those from the Song Dynasty, Zhang Zeduan's is a venerated masterpiece, a national treasure.  It has inspired several copies throughout the years. 

To think, it predates the likes of Hieronymus Bosch or more similarly Pieter Brueghel the Elder by over 300-400 years. 

If we could go back in time, perhaps that'll be the aerial picture from our UFO. 

Above link to panorama of original Qingming Shang He Tu.
Above links to detail views.  
Above link to panorama of 18th century remake.
Above link to compare and contrast both panoramas.  


I could only find one book on the painting that's readily available, Qingming Shang He Tu: Scenes along the River during the Qingming Festival (Better Link Press, 2008). 

Yang Dongsheng's Along the River During Qingming Festival (Tianjin People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2008) may be a good one to get. 

Other titles I could gather online, in chronological order:
Zhang Anzhi/Zhang Zeduan Qing ming shang he tu yan jiu (1962)
Liu Yuanlin/Qing ming shang he tu zhi zong he yan jiu (1969)
Roderick Whitfield et al./Bright as Silver White as Snow (Resources Ltd, 1998)
Liu Jian Ping/Qingming Festival (Tianjing People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2004)
Zhao Guang Chao/Notes: Riverside (SDX Joint Publishing Life, 2005)
Ren Hui Ying/Zhang Zeduan Riverside (Liaoning Fine Arts Publishing House, 2006)
Qui Ying/Quiying Model the Along the River During Qingming Festival of Zhang Zeduan (Cultural Relics Publishing House, 2007)
Lei Shao Feng/Assumption Painting (Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, 2008)
Saying Qingming (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2008)
Along the River During Qingming Festival (Tianjin People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2009)
Wu Xue Shan/Zhang Zeduan Riverside (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Anno Mitsumasa/La Chine de Zhang Zeduan (L'Ecole des Loisirs, 2010)
Bei Ji Cang Lang/Riverside (Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 2010)
Lambert M. Surhone, Mariam T. Tennoe, Susan F. Henssonow eds./Zhang Zeduan (Betascript Publishing, 2010)
Wang Hong Qi/Special Art Appreciation (Tongji University Press, 2010)
fiction:
Adeline Yen Mah/Along the River: A Chinese Cinderella Story (Delacorte Press, 2010)
Above link to dubiously helpful website.

Above link to article on world's longest woodcarving of Qingming Shang He Tu.

Friday, March 11, 2011

William Blake, bibliographical progress, *exhibition at The Huntington*

***This post is incomplete, but I'm publishing it to let y'all know about The Huntington exhibition on some works by Blake.***


The Tyger copy Z, 1826, originally 1794.
Europe Supported by Africa and America, 1796.
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, 1805-10.
The Book of Urizen frontpiece copy G, 1818, originally 1794.
I'm happy that there seems to be a steady interest in William Blake...


For a while there, Princeton University Press was the leading publisher of things Blake, with a series edited by David Bindman.  The highlight was the facsimiles of Blake's Illuminated Books, fine first edition clothbound volumes now costing a pretty penny:
Morton D. Paley ed./The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 1: Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (1991)
Andrew Lincoln ed./The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 2: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1991)
Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, Joseph Viscomi eds./The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 3: The Early Illuminated Books (1993)
D.W. Dorrbecker ed./The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 4: The Continental Prophecies (1995)
Robert N. Essick, Joseph Viscomi eds./The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 5: Milton, A Poem (1993)
David Worrall ed./The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 6: The Urizen Books (1995)

If you can't get hold of those, there's David Bindman/William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books (Thames & Hudson, 2000), reprinted 2001.

And of course, Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (1947) is the classic text, and still highly influential. 

Another favorite is David V. Erdman's Blake: Prophet Against Empire (1954).  Erdman also edited The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake - New and Revised Edition (University of California Press, 1982) is the nice one to get, not the recent one (2008).

Other Erdman works on Blake:
w/ John E. Grant/Blake's Visionary Forms Dramatic (Princeton University Press, 1970), out of print

The Illuminated Blake: All of William Blake's Complete Illuminated Works with a Plate-by-Plate Commentary (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1974), reprinted (Dover Publications, 1992)

Also, Kathleen Raine's Blake and Tradition (1968) is again available as a two volume set (Routledge, 2002).

Other Raine works on Blake:
Blake and Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 1978), out of print


More recently, The William Blake Archive is available online.  Check it out. 


Also, if you're in Southern California, near Los Angeles or Pasadena or in San Marino, check out The Huntington's exhibition Born To Endless Night: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by William Blake Selected by John Frame, March 12, 2011-June 20, 2011.  The Huntington has a collection of Blake's works and exhibitions from time to time. 
The Huntington Library is worth a visit.
Also, it's very nice to take a stroll through the Huntington's botanical gardens...
...then relax at the Rose Tea Room, with tea (or coffee) and cucumber sandwiches etc haha.


*Here are the other titles I could cull from Princeton University Press' website, in chronological order:
Albert S. Roe/Blake's Illustrations for the Divine Comedy (1953), out of print
Charles Ryskamp/William Blake, Engraver: A Descriptive Catalogue of an Exhibition (1969), out of print
Irene Tayler/Blake's Illustrations to the Poems of Gray (1971), out of print
Susan Fox/Poetic Form in Blake's Milton (1976), out of print
W.J. Thomas Mitchell/Blake's Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry (1978), out of print
Christine Gallant/Blake's and the Assimilation of Chaos (1979), out of print
Leopold Damrosch Jr./Symbol and Myth in Blake's Myth (1980), out of print
Robert N. Essick/William Blake, Printmaker (1980), out of print
Morris Eaves/William Blakes' Theory of Art (1982), out of print
Leslie Tannenbaum/Biblical Tradition in Blake's Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art (1982), out of print
Robert N. Essick/The Separate Plates of William Blake: A Catalogue (1983), out of print
Michael Ferber/The Social Vision of William Blake (1985), out of print
Vincent Arthur De Luca/Words of Eternity: Blake and the Poetics of the Sublime (1991), out of print
Joseph Viscomi/Blake and the Idea of the Book (1993), out of print
William Vaughan/William Blake (1999), out of print
Michael Phillips/William Blake: The Creation of the Songs From Manuscript to Illuminated Printing (2000)
Neil Forsyth/The Satanic Epic (2004)
Joyce H. Townsend ed./William Blake: The Painter at Work (2004), out of print


(under construction)
*Chronological bibliography of other books strictly on William Blake, which I'll try to update and repost on a regular basis:

1960s:
Thomas J. J. Altizer/The New Apocalyse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake (Michigan State University Press, 1967)


1970s:
Roger R. Easson, Robert N. Essick/William Blake: Book Illustrator (St. Lukes Press, 1972), out of print

Robert N. Essick/The Visionary Hand: Essays for the Study of William Blake' Art and Aesthetics (Hennessey & Ingalls, 1973), out of print
Robert N. Essick/William Blake's Relief Inventions (William & Victoria Dailey, The Press of the Pegacycle Lady, 1978), out of print

S. Foster Damon, Morris Eaves/A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake (Thames & Hudson, 1979), out of print

Robert N. Essick, D. Pierce/Blake and His Time (Indiana University Press, 1979), out of print


1980s:
Robert N. Essick/The Works of William Blake at the Huntington Collections: A Complete Catalogue (Huntington Library Press, 1985)

Donald Ault, George Quasha/Narrative Unbound: Re-Visioning William Blake's The Four Zoas (Station Hill Press, 1987)
Robert N. Essick/William Blake and His Contemporaries and Followers: Selected Works from the Collection of Robert N. Essick: An Exhibition Catalogue (Huntington Library Press, 1987), out of print

S. Foster Damon, Morris Eaves/A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, Revised Edition (Brown University Press, 1988)

Robert N. Essick/William Blake and the Language of Adam (Oxford University Press, 1989), out of print


1990s:
Robert N. Essick/William Blake's Commercial Book Illustrations: A Catalogue and Study of the Plates Engraved by Blake after Designs by Other Artists (Oxford University Press, 1991), out of print

Michael Ferber/The Poetry of William Blake (Penguin, 1991), out of print
Morris Eaves/The Counter-Art Conspiracy: Art and Industry in the Age of Blake (Cornell University Press, 1992)

Robert N. Essick/William Blake at the Huntington: An Introduction to the William Blake Collection in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California (Abrams, 1994)

Christopher Heppner/Reading Blake's Designs (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Robert N. Essick/A Troubled Past: William Blake's Virgil Wood Engravings (J. Windle, 1999)
Robert N. Essick/William Blake: Images and Texts (Huntington Library Press, 1999)


2000s:
G.E. Bentley Jr./The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake (Yale University Press, 2001), reprinted 2003

Morris Eaves ed./The Cambridge Companion to William Blake (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Morton D. Paley/The Traveller in the Evening: The Last Works of William Blake (Oxford University Press, 2004)


fiction:
R.F. Nelson/Blake's Progress (Laser Books, 1975)


facsimiles:
Robert N. Essick ed./Visions of the Daughters of Albion (Huntington Library Press, 2003)

Robert N. Essick ed./Songs of Innocence and Experience (Huntington Library Press, 2008)