Warhol’s Factory as seen through the lens of a young Shore, providing an insider view of this extraordinary moment and place

Stephen Shore was 17 years old when he began hanging out at The Factory – Andy Warhol’s legendary studio in Manhattan. Between 1965 and 1967, Shore spent nearly every day there, taking pictures of its diverse cast of characters, from musicians to actors, artists to writers, and including Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, and Nico – not to mention Warhol himself. This book presents a personal selection of photographs from Shore’s collection, providing an insider’s view of this extraordinary moment and place, as seen through the eyes of one of photography’s most beloved practitioners. (PHAIDON)

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A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. At once a vital portrait of contemporary African American life and an intensely personal and poetic meditation on identity, family, friendship, and love, Moonlight is a groundbreaking piece of cinema that reverberates with deep compassion and universal truths. Anchored by extraordinary performances from a tremendous ensemble cast, Jenkins’s staggering, singular vision is profoundly moving in its portrayal of the moments, people, and unknowable forces that shape our lives and make us who we are. (A24)

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Norwegian artist and writer Jenny Hval, known for her fascinating voice, singular delivery and markedly non-traditional arrangements which incorporate elements of poetry, prose writing, performance art, and film, releases her new album Blood Bitch co-produced by acumen noise producer Lasse Marhaug. Her new effort is in many respects a complete 180° from her last in subject matter, execution and production. It is her most focused, but the lens is filtered through a gaze which the viewer least expects. The New York Times defines her writing as “taking a scalpel to the subjects of gender politics and sexuality.” (Sacred Bones)

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Adapted from Maile Meloy’s short-story collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Certain Women is a meditation on three Montana women as they navigate their own very disparate struggles of loneliness, want and redemption. Director Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Night Moves) draws drama from the seemingly interstitial and inconsequential, following each story at glacial speed in order to properly observe the lives of her subjects at every turn. The dazzling Michelle Williams joins Reichardt for the third time (previously in Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy), while Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern and some impressive newcomers, including Lily Gladstone, fill out a hypnotic collective performance. (IFC Films)

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Elliott Smith’s tragically brief life has held an outsized musical and cultural influence. For evidence, one only needs to visit the mural in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, that appears on the album cover for Smith’s Figure 8, where admirers still leave heartfelt messages of gratitude, love and sorrow. It is in honor of this legacy that a handful of today’s foremost songwriters—each of whom bears the influence of Smith’s career—have assembled Say Yes! A Tribute to Elliott Smith. Hearing Smith’s songs in new hands serves to reinforce their universality and the fundamental strength of the songwriting. In a welcome surprise, some of Smith’s most openly “sad” songs receive an unexpectedly upbeat treatment—Juliana Hatfield’s cover of “Needle in the Hay,” for instance—which allows this album to become more than just mournful, and instead feel like something of a celebration, as Smith’s career deserves. (American Laundromat Records)

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Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation is an unapologetic retelling of Nat Turner’s slave uprising in Virginia in 1831. The film takes its name from D.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation, which has been both lauded as a milestone in cinematic storytelling and wholly condemned as unflinchingly racist. This is “ironically, but very much by design,” according to Parker, who co-wrote, co-produced, directed and starred in The Birth of a Nation. His film comes at a time when Hollywood is revisiting stories of slavery and rebellion (for instance, History Channel’s mini-series Roots and Free State of Jones), and its relevance is clear beside the Black Lives Matter movement and national dialogue concerning institutional racism.

The Birth of a Nation’s premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2016 led to standing ovations and two awards: the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize for Drama, as well as a bidding war that ended in a record-setting purchase from Fox Searchlight. The film stars Armie Hammer (The Social Network) and Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away with Murder) alongside Parker as preacher and slave Turner, whose rebellion ultimately ended in massacre and the rescinding of freed slave’s rights across the Antebellum South. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

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Starring Shia LaBeouf alongside Riley Keough (The Runaways) and newcomer Sasha Lane, American Honey is director Andrea Arnold’s love letter to the road, set in the American Midwest and reverent of the young Occupy iconoclasts of this generation. The film follows 19-year-old Star (Lane), who joins a group of roving outcasts making ends meet as door-to-door salespeople with questionable ethics. The sepia-toned story angles in on a burgeoning young love as it pinwheels through Americana, flippant partying and disarming moments of pensivity. Arnold won her third Cannes Grand Jury Prize in ten years for American Honey—following those for Fish Tank (2009) and Red Road (2006)—and was also nominated for the festival’s Palme d’Or. (A24)

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Prolific photographer, filmmaker and actor Dennis Hopper was a firm believer that art-making requires nothing more than intentional looking. He once said, “Art is everywhere, in every corner that you choose to frame and not just ignore and walk by.” This is exactly what Hopper achieves in his series Colors, for which he set out in 1987 with his Polaroid camera to document gang markings in Los Angeles, especially attracted by the abstract colors and shapes created by multiple layers of spray-painted graffiti.

The series shares its name with his ensuing directorial feature, Colors (1988), in which two cops, played by Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, patrol East Los Angeles attempting to control gang violence. Hopper has appeared in cult films the likes of Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Blue Velvet (1986) and Hoosiers (1986) alongside mainstream features including Apocalypse Now (1979), but is most renowned for his 1969 directorial debut, Easy Rider.

Damiani celebrates Hopper’s eye in this new monogram, Dennis Hopper: Colors, the Polaroids. The book collects this striking series which, though ostensibly research for Hopper’s coming film, simultaneously immortalizes an era of Los Angeles and the ephemeral art that defined it. (Damiani)

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