The pun in the title refers to, other than Cardon Webb working on book covers for Oliver Sacks, sacks of talent the man has. This particular idea of the in-house designer for Vintage Books was initially mothballed, only to later be put back for discussion and eventually realized. We can see that the reason for delaying this project might have been the unusual way books come together, to form a whole. They would not fully shine on a shelf, but even individually each is a little masterpiece of modern design. If we were owners of all six books we’d have one out in a visible place and, when asked about it, would not hesitate to bring the other five out, just to brag a bit. Putting them permanently displayed on a wall face is a viable option as well. Design of these covers really comes alive when you understand how to the point it is on subjects of the books them selves. Then, pleased with your purchase, you put them all together and see they form a visually simple, yet quite informative whole… and you fall in love with books, information, modern design, life and everything. Perhaps we’ve overstated the whole thing for just a hair, but we don’t mind and hope you won’t either. Excellent design is only expected to follow the works of the outstanding physician, psychiatrist and author Oliver Sacks is.

For Katsuyo Aoki, dreams of Japan are predictive dreams. Since he’s both from Japan and the dreamer in question, we can understand that, in this, probably a reduced manner. If we were to understand this initial premise better, a deeper knowledge of Japan’s cultural heritage is needed. We can, still, say a few more words – from our, foreigners, point of view. Skulls are not representations of some subcultural affinities, in the Predictive Dream series. Rather, they are an attempt to fully represent an ancient and complex culture. It is barbaric, sublime, vulgar and pure – fueled by it’s members’ hopes and fears. Although it would seem really an impossible task, to create a template for a culture – as we let our eyes wander the exquisitely crafted ceramic statuettes, we can feel our foreigners point of view gently sliding towards the opposite end of familiarity.

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There’s this French guy who calls himself Invader. He invades spaces of cities (35 so far, worldwide) with variations of four characters from the arcade classic, Space Invaders - gluing tiles on walls of buildings, creating heavily pixelated images. He’s received images of his work from cities he’s never visited. Invading has outgrown the one-man-show it was.

Though there certainly are people who dismiss the idea that Invader is an artist, we very much disagree. To argument our claim we give you his less invasive series – RubikCubism.

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Rubik Ingres

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Rubik Mona Lisa

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Rubik Kubrik II

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Rubik Arrested Sid

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Rubik Bonnie & Clyde

Jason Munn

His works are a part of permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Denver Art Museum. Some of his regular clients are Wilco, Sonic Youth, the Flaming Lips, Mark Kozelek, the National, Built to Spill and Spoon.

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At a first glance you might not notice, but those are actually books down there. Some were soaked in a bathtub, some just aged correctly and to some, horrible things were done. However, no important books were used as subjects in Cara Barer‘s sculpting/photography project. One of the books below is “Houston yellow pages” and another is “Windows 95″ – hardly to be missed by anyone. Though the books shown might seem somewhat discomforted, they are imbued by the artist with a new life and purpose – a gift we know they’d appreciate, if they only could. We, however, wishing them only the best, can and do.

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Being a writer and photographer, we present here Mr. Banier’s work in the combination of the two, for him, interdependent practices. His photographs show a completed story in the culmination, which he then expands with spontaneous writing on large-format black and white prints. The main protagonists of these multimedial stories are, and in spite of Mr. Banier’s social profile, anonymous but quite memorable people of the streets – bearing complex life stories that yet are strikingly obvious for an accomplished photographer and artist.

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Surreal, urban landscapes are what you have the pleasure to see in the images below. Created by Amy Casey, a Cleveland based painter with a unique sensibility for (sub)urban communities, it’s interactions and communication. “Landscapes” represented in Ms. Casey’s paintings are held together by qualities of communities – cooperation, having common interests, sharing the good and the bad – simple and well-meaning neighborly relationships that can prove worthless when practiced only by few, but that are a strong building foundation when practiced by many. You can even call it invisible architecture. These are mostly quite large images – acrylic on paper or panel.a