Souvlaki Circus

Today's Friday art book is Souvlaki Circus by Amanda Vahamaki and Michelangelo Setola. It's the kind of book you pick up in a museum store, just because the package is so cool--petite size, printed cloth cover--and end up buying because there's something sort of mesmerizing about the contents. The drawings inside are consistently witty, and by turns quietly beautiful or really quite disturbing. The more time I spend with this book the more I realize that I like the drawings in that first, beautiful, category the best and those are the ones that are mostly pictured below (in a side note, I've also noticed that when I'm not in love with every single image in a book, I think I actually take more pictures for these posts; basically shooting all the images I really like, whereas when I'm infatuated with every. single. page. in a book I take fewer, feeling the need, I suppose, to show restraint and not just shoot the whole darn thing). So, I find myself wondering if the drawings in this book that I like best were done by one of the artists (my prejudiced heart says it was Vahamaki, the woman) while the more chilling images were perhaps created by the other artist. No way of knowing, as they've chosen not to attribute each drawing in any way at all. An obfuscating technique I find I actually quite enjoy.