Among the many things the world doesn’t need now is another book of record covers, but DB Burkeman’s Art Sleeves, which is published today by Rizzoli, is something else entirely.

For once the publisher’s blurb is spot-on; this is “a tightly curated exploration” of record covers which challenge the distinctions between art and design, between object and product.

This means that there are many surprises in the book, and a minimum of the usual suspects.

Art Sleeves also contains a bonus in a series of artist spotlights and conversations featuring such exponents as Christian Marclay, INVADER, Ryan McGinley, Genieve Figgis  and Marilyn Minter.

And Barney Bubbles receives a mention as DB’s “personal design hero” in the introduction.

I recommend Art Sleeves highly. Order your copy here and follow Art Sleeves on Instagram here.

Tags: Art Sleeves, Christian Marclay, DB Burkeman, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, Genieve Figgis, Invader, Marilyn Minter, Richard Prince, Rizzoli, Ryan McGinley

Grace Jones maternity dress 1979 © Jean-Paul Goude.

Here is a selection of images from the V&A’s forthcoming exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990. In pursuit of this slippery-to-define movement, curators Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt have settled on the defining principles of quotation and bricolage (assemblage from diverse elements).

As a result they have mixed and matched disciplines, categories and scale in their line-up of 250 exhibits, ranging from a reconstruction of Hans Hollein’s 1980 Venice Biennale facade The Presence Of The Past to graphics for record sleeves by Barney Bubbles, Neville Brody and Peter Saville.

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Tags: Andy Warhol, Charles Jencks, Cindy Sherman, Derek Jarman, Glenn Adamson, Grace Jones, Hans Hollein, Helmut Newton, Jane Pavitt, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Laurie Anderson, neville Brody, New Order, Peter Saville, Philip Johnson, Ray Petri, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Ron Arad, s David Byrne, Talking Heads, The Face, V&A

Patti Smith is the focus of the latest Beatbooks sale, which is accompanied by a printed catalogue up to the usual high standards of the archive’s curator Andrew Sclanders.

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Tags: A Clockwork Orange, Al Hansen, Albert Camus, Andrew Sclanders, Anthony Burgess, BeatBooks, Charlotte Moorman & Nam June Paik, Gotham Book Mart, Harry Partch, Jim Carroll, John Cage, Jospeh Byrd, Karen Finley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Larry Clark, Patti Smith, Richard hell, Richard Prince, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tod Dockstader, Vali Myers, Witt