Sold's Stack of Books: We Ate The Acid by Joe Roberts
Winter is on its way! The season for getting cozy with a book, curating that coffee table collection and for gift giving is here, and a great time to open up Sold Magazine's Library! This new section of the website will review books, announce up coming releases, and hopefully, interviews with the authors themselves! Get those reader glasses on, it's time to get book smart.
1st to be added to Sold Magazine's Dewey Decimal ClassificationSystem:
San Francisco-based Artist Joe Roberts
We Ate The Acid (61)A3HT3TA3) *
Joe Roberts' second monograph-style book, takes viewers through shamanistic imagery spiraling into a cacophony of shapes, colors and mystic symbolism; all guided by a Fantasia-style Micky Mouse-like character the artist sometimes calls Weezy. The book features a forward by Hamilton Morris (Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia on Vice), and concluding with a conversation with gallerist and actor Leo Fitzpatrick (Director of Marlborough Contemporary).
Existing between fear and curious euphoria, Roberts’ trips wind through various terrain and media; incorporating collage, diorama, drawing and painting evocative of Basquiat and Joseph Cornell. He boasts an impressive stable of collaborations with musicians, filmmakers, and streetwear companies – most notably to date with Supreme for their Fall 2017 line, producing a line of signature t-shirts.
We Ate The Acid features distorted pop culture references in increasingly phantasmagoric scenes where countless arches and pathways serve as portals to Roberts’ psyche.
The book chronicles UFOs and chemical constellations as they appear in city and nature scenes alike, while alien faces and indigenous symbolism rest at the center of geometric mandalas. We Ate The Acid likens an art object itself, using various paper textures bound in a “skeleton” manner exposing the worn, traveled nature of its subject matter. As part of the first edition, an undisclosed number of artist prints will be placed inside a handful of books available on the publisher’s website. Roberts prefaces the book’s disorienting journey with a declaration:
“The way you choose to explore it is the way you choose to explore it. Make sure you take notes.”
Fluctuating between dark landscapes and the tunneling, termite-like architectural surges of smiley faces, this trippy book is being released today, and during the perfect timing for the psychotropic art lover on your holiday list!
A collection like this is why an art book is made. The production is still desired, and Morris proves that the documentation of psychadelic drug experiences are considered a serious artistic and spiritual expression. Taking the images all in page by page, is the experience intended as opposed to a white wall showcase. I flip through once, then again later in the day. I saw an entirely different perspective. Next time, I will look backwards.
What will happen after it has sat on the shelf for a year? As much as I swoon for one large bold mural on a NYC wall, I love my personal art library and picking a book off the shelf at different times. Despite not being familiar with the artist beforehand, Joe Roberts' book will be a welcomed addition to my shelf - right next to my High Times Encyclopedia of Recreational Drugs from 1978.
You can purchase the book online here. Published by Anthology Editions, the NYC Launch events is:
Thursday, December 6th at 7PM
171 Canal Street, 3rd Floor
*The code? That’s "We Ate The Acid" backwards, but Joe would tell you to add up the numbers and rearrange the letters just to throw you off.
