Yes already Keanu Reeves He was not the typical North American actor of fame and luxury (his life has been plagued with quite a few setbacks since he was very little), now he has carried out another action that distances him much more from the stereotypical image that we have of the well-known actors.
The actor has founded a publishing house known by the name X Artist's Books, which is aimed at the minority public. This publisher is loaded with a lot of concept art and a lot of politics. A different publisher run by unusual people. In this new mission, Keanu Reeves is not alone, there are two more founders: Jessica Fleischmann and Alexandra Grant.
Keanu Reeves and the art world
Not only is he a film actor (seventh art) but he also tried the musical world, playing both guitar and bass. The literary world has already proved him as an author by writing «Ode to Happiness »(« Ode to happiness ») Y "Shadows ”(“ Shadows ”).
Now with X Artist's Books, which is aimed at a minority audience (the circulation of the first books is around a thousand copies), advocates creativity, dialogue and collaboration.
In his web page, we can see that there are still few books that they have for sale, specifically there are four:
- The Artists' Prison: "The artists' prison" look askance at the workings of personality and privilege, sexuality, authority and artifice in the art world. Imagined through the tightly worded testimony of the prison warden, written by Alexandra Grant, and powerfully allusive images by Eve Wood, the prison is a brutal, Kafkaesque landscape where creativity can be a crime and the phrases range from allegorical to absurd. On the Artists Prison , the act of creating becomes a strangely erotic condemnation, as well as a means of punishment and transformation. It is in these same transformations - sometimes dubious, sometimes strangely sentimental - that the critical edge of the book is sharpest. In structural terms, The Artists' Prison represents a unique visual and literary intersection. Price: $ 35,00.
- High Winds: "Strong winds" He sets off on a mind-blowing road trip in search of his half brother, driven by cryptic signs and coincidences. It is a book that is told in an associative and elliptical style, and the narrative takes readers deep into a dreamy Western landscape. Price: $ 35,00.
- The Words of Others: "Other people's words" is the first complete English translation of the uncompromising literary work of the Argentine artist León Ferrari (1967). A critique of the Vietnam War and American imperial politics, the book weaves together hundreds of excerpts from newspapers, works of history, the Bible, and other sources. Ferrari envisioned a dialogue between the so-called voices of authority, insisting on the equal complicity of individuals like Hitler, Lyndon Johnson, Pope Paul VI, and God in perpetuating endless cycles of violence. Price: $ 25,00.
- "Zus": On Sister , a visual essay by French photographer Benoît Fougeirol, the visions and points of view of eleven of the "Sensitive Urban Areas" on the peripheries of Paris reveal harsh paradoxes of modern society. Through the synecdoche of architecture - its materials, patterns and surfaces - Fougeirol presents the stubborn vitality and abandonment of the Zus and the failures of the collective imagination they represent. Sister documents each territory with an inventory that includes photographs, graphic representations, and place names, none of which can only explain a totality. The cumulative structure of the book raises questions about the tools of representation and the nature of individual perspective. A text by the author, poet and playwright Jean-Christophe Bailly reflects on the broader meaning and lived experience of the Zus, following a lyrical thread in inhospitable spaces. Price: $ 60,00.
We hope and wish since Actualidad Literatura, all the luck in the world to K. Reeves in this new initiative. Any commitment to the world of art in general and literature in particular is to be celebrated.